Alright, we are live.

So our vice chair, you are welcome to call the load to order.

And introduce our guest speakers.

Thank you.

You need help lineup.

All right.

And 5 35, I'll call our meetings before.

We have a second.

A motion on the event.

Okay.

We don't have to use that.

Yeah, the meeting has been under eight.

Thank you.

And I'll turn it over to our guest speaker for tonight.

If you have anything you would like to present at the board or a podium before you can.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Alicia Myers, and I am one of the City of Tulsa's neighborhood liaisons.

And I will be assisting our neighborhood coordinator.

Good afternoon, everybody.

My name is John Heatherington.

I'm your neighborhood programs coordinator with Alicia in the Tulsa Planning Office.

This evening we'll be presenting to you our neighborhood conditions index report.

And we'll have a conversation with you all about our neighborhood programs and how they are informed by this report.

So we're very happy to introduce this unique resource the city has put together.

Just an outline of what we'll be looking at is what is the neighborhood conditions index?

How is it made?

What is it?

Two is how to interpret your report, and third, um action planning or how to organize your neighborhood to address the data points you find in there to make improvements with your neighbors.

So first, what is the neighborhood conditions index?

Tulsans love their neighborhoods, and they want to improve their neighborhoods, but it's not always clear what to do or how to get started.

Both the assets and strengths of your neighborhood, what you can lean on, what you can draw from, as well as uh gaps or perhaps areas that need some improvement.

We will make it very easy to identify and act upon.

And to make it even easier to interpret, we have designed it to look a lot like a health report.

And we've used color codes to say, hey, green, you're doing great.

Yellow, maybe you want to take a look.

Red, this is something you might want to pay attention to.

We organized it into nine chapters that reflect the comprehensive plan.

So I have the nine chapters up here.

And as you'll see in a moment, it's broken down into multiple data points under each chapter.

So interpreting a report.

This is the first page, and you'll see there is a uh a map of the area that is your uh what we call it the area, it's the neighborhood statistical area, and then you can see a map of the city itself and where your neighborhood is located or that reports located.

There's also the overall scores, the sort of grand total summary scores from zero to one to five, and the priority group, uh, which is underneath.

The priority group is actually used to help the city determine which neighborhoods to focus resources on.

And it's based upon the overall score.

These are the nine chapters, and then an example of the category scores for each chapter.

And as you can see underneath the multiple data points that informed those uh category scores.

As I said before, we we use uh a number from zero to five.

The top 25% scoring data points in a given neighborhood will be green.

The middle 50 is gray, and then the lowest scoring 25% are red.

So you can easily see, and this is comparing your area against the Tulsa average.

Um so you can very quickly see, like, wow, as compared to other Tulsa neighborhoods, of which we've set out 80.

Well, we're doing very well here, or maybe we don't have as much, say, tree canopy coverage as other neighborhoods in comparison.

Or perhaps if it's gray, we're right in the middle, we're right in the average.

This is page four, it's an area snapshot, and it's just statistical data.

Who lives in the neighborhood and the demographics of the people and the resources such as libraries and restaurants, for example, that are nearby, access to trails.

It's just the um the uh just the ordinary data.

And then we have a glossary of terms.

There's a lot of plannerly language in here.

We try to make it accessible, but if there's any question as to what does this mean or how did you score being close to sidewalks or trails?

There's a glossary of terms here, you can tell exactly how the data was determined.

As I mentioned, we have uh the entire city of Tulsa broken down into 80 neighborhood designations, and we have a report that looks just like every other report comparing apples to apples for all 80 neighborhoods in the city.

Uh data and narrative, and I like this part, and I'll say you live in a neighborhood, you have a story about what is it like to live there.

Your neighbors have a story about what it is what it's like to live in your neighborhood, right?

Um, and that comes from your personal experience and also from your values.

We all see our neighborhood through the lens of our own values.

The data is just hard data that is meant to inform your story.

Data doesn't have values.

You as a human being have a value, have a set of values, right?

So the data is meant to start a conversation for yourself.

Are the facts reflecting what I'm seeing, or is this my personal lens, right?

Or if I'm having a conversation, say with my brother who lives down the street, what does he value?

What does he see?

How does the data inform our conversation?

And that's a lot of the work that Alicia and I do is using this report through that lens, right?

Uh here's an example of taking data and lived experience in a conversation with neighbors to address change in the neighborhood.

So this is the Sequoia neighborhood, and we've highlighted a few different data points here.

Um they're okay on sidewalks, pretty poor on collisions with cyclists and other cars and and pedestrians, and kind of in the middle on street lights, and but you'll notice their loose animal complaints is very high.

They scored a zero out of that.

In a workshop we had that included in this neighborhood that included teachers at a school, one teacher said, Hey, there's a lot, there's a high truancy rate.

Children aren't going to school.

And we're like, why would that be, right?

This is again a narrative.

This is something that she was observing through her lens as a teacher, concerned about truancy.

But using this data, it started to put the pieces together and said, hey, maybe it's just not safe for the kids to walk to school.

It could be a matter of sidewalks or street lights, but those are okay.

But loose animals, actually, there's reports of wild dogs in the neighborhood, and that's just not safe for children.

This data helped inform that story and led them to begin to address it.

Uh so action planning part three.

How do you use this report to do something about it in your neighborhood?

Classic who, what, when, where, why and how?

It never fails.

Uh, so here's another example.

Um, you could identify what are your highest scoring data points and consider those the assets or strengths of your neighborhood.

What's working well for you?

What can you lean on?

What can you draw on and be proud of and and share with uh the rest of the city?

What are your lowest scoring points?

Whereas maybe they're an opportunity to improve things.

Maybe the lowest scoring points are something that other folks in the neighborhood care about too, and you can start a conversation.

Perhaps it's something people can rally around.

So take, for example, tree canopy in this neighborhood was scoring very low.

And uh there was some folks who are like, hey, let's organize to do something about it.

Very briefly, right?

Well, what do we want to do?

We want to plant some trees to increase the tree canopy in the neighborhood.

Why?

People like shade.

It heats up a neighborhood.

If you don't have enough trees, it's not safe outside.

So in planting trees, it cools it down, it's safer, it's more beautiful.

There's a lot of reasons why you would want to plant trees.

Who could be involved?

They decided to create a committee of people who know about trees and also have some resources they can organize to plant the trees and increase the canopy.

When?

Once you've gathered all your resources together and figured what you need to do, you can create a timeline and set out when, and of course, how tree planting events is clearly the answer there, identifying the trees, getting neighbors involved, finding people to help do the plantings, and creating a plan to maintain the trees.

And that's really just an outline of the NCI report and how you might use it.

When I first heard about this, I was thrilled.

It's a conversation starter, it's really a tool for dialogue.

And in our work, we help foster dialogue in so many different ways, and that's why bringing in a tool like the NCI report helps support a good robust dialogue that combines data and our narratives towards taking action together.

And then you see our contact information up here if you'd like any assistance accessing a report or you have questions about interpreting the data points or anything that we could do to support you.

We are absolutely here for it.

Here's my contact information as well.

Would you like to say a few words there, Alicia?

Um I just want to say that when you are planning, or if you live in a neighborhood and you haven't been very familiar with the neighborhood statistics, this is a great tool for you to be able to get caught up on what has happened previously, as this report has this is our second report that has been made public.

The first one was done three years ago.

So we also know that it captures the transitioning of the different things that are occurring in neighborhoods.

There have been a lot of neighborhoods that have been actively utilizing the information from this report to make that change, and so it's very interesting for us to be able to see the changes that occur as the reports come out.

Like, so example, um, the the latest report just came out last month.

So was it last month?

It was it was last month.

So the report that we have that's um current is very current, and so um I hope that if you get an opportunity to check out the report, it you would be fascinated with all of the different details that were captured.

And a lot of this information is very vital to us working in neighborhoods because it gives us an opportunity to see the people who are directly related or affected by what is happening or not happening in their neighborhoods, and also, too.

One more thing about the NSA, there are 80 neighborhood statistical areas, but there may be multiple neighborhood associations found within that area.

So if you find one and you say that my neighborhood is connected with another, that's okay.

That just means that you fit within that square mile.

And so that is about all I have.

We'd like to take a few questions from you if you all have some.

Before I do, in the packets in front of you have some flyers for our neighborhood programs, and I kind of want to just give a shout out to them.

The first one is the NCI workshop.

That is, we can come to your neighborhood.

If you organize the venue and invite people, we'll come to the neighborhood and we'll describe this report that you've just seen.

We'll highlight some data points and then give time for small group dialogue and conversation.

Um, in one instance, we actually saw uh a mother organize her own block group from that neighbor from that meeting.

So that's one thing that the NCI workshops can do.

The second one is the NCI collaborative.

We just opened up applications for that, and we'll be working with up to three neighborhoods for a whole year.

City departments, neighborhood leaders, and the planning office all working together to have monthly neighborhood meetings based upon this report, identifying the neighborhood's top priorities and then building action plans to address those priorities.

And we're very excited for it, and I hope y'all want to apply because we're looking for neighborhood leaders and y'all seem like you would be.

What is the third?

Neighborhood academy.

Please say a word about neighborhood academy.

So neighborhood academy is an opportunity for residents in the city of Tulsa and even surrounding areas to attend a three-session workshop.

And it allows you to learn a lot of the ins and outs of uh how neighborhoods work and also it as you go through the course, it helps you to become uh what we look at as a neighborhood certified leader.

And we have, as I'm looking in the room, we have at least one person in here that has completed her uh session, and we will be recognizing her tomorrow, and that is Mrs.

Breekner, and so she will be graduating and we will be um celebrating her accomplishments, and um neighborhood academy started out as a need because we had a lot of people that wanted to know what you know is necessary to run a neighborhood association.

We have so many different needs.

We have people who don't want to necessarily participate in a formal setting, but they want to contribute, and so this allows them to learn what is necessary, and it also helps people who are in the current position to learn what else they can do with their neighborhoods.

So people from block groups, neighborhood association, homeowner association, alert neighbors, uh, I want to say tenant associations and business associations can be a part of it.

And at the end of the day, the more people who go through the process or know someone who has attended the cohorts, we have more people in neighborhoods that are able to assist and be a voice for those neighborhood associations.

I have that going on in the top, been a while, but it's been a long time since we got into that.

We've got it before and not talk about as far as a community pulling it together and we'll connect it.

So thank you.

I'm glad you're coming back in the morning.

Yes, good thing.

You too.

Um, Lexi will send an email with instructions for how you can access your own reports.

Just want to let y'all know that.

Um, we have a couple minutes left for questions.

There's one more program that we have.

It's in your pamphlet, and it's called Neighborhood Connect, and it's our newest program, and it is to assist neighborhood associations and um residents with connecting with either other neighboring associations or bringing partnerships together to work to um, I would say collaborate on a common goal, and we can assist you if there's something that you need, or we can help to connect you with resources that could help with your um meeting or whatever goal that you're wanting to work with other groups.

One of the one of our applicants right now, because we have had I believe seven since we launched the program in uh April, and one of the neighboring associations is wanting to meet with the other surrounding neighborhoods, so that they can let them know we're here, we want to know what you're about, and we'd like to get together and see how we could work together and possibly just you know lend an ear from time to time, and then another association is wanting to um do an activity together to improve their neighborhood, but they're what they're wanting to do is bring other people together who have that like uh I should say like-minded when it comes to as far as bettering their uh tree canopy.

So, a few quick questions.

Uh thank you for the presentation.

So for someone that is interested in the basic level of getting involved with their neighborhood, they should look into neighborhood academy for organizations that want to create a neighborhood association, they should look into connect for the NCI index collaborate.

Is that accurate?

You can actually um if you if they're wanting to connect with their neighborhood or establish a neighborhood association, neighborhood academy is the first place they could go, and then neighborhood connect and then neighborhood conditions index are basically um ways that they could leverage what they've learned.

Thank you.

I have a question.

Is this the only uh the tough city county?

Any of the programs, city and the Tulsa County.

Do you uh have problems for Osage County?

If they're within the Tulsa City limits, yes, but um, because most of the resources would be here.

But you could still, um, as far as Osage County, depending on how far it goes out, um, it would depend on what the actual goal is.

Because we do have some people who are attending neighborhood academy that are not in the city of Tulsa.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Well, thank you guys so much there.

I think you need to see all of your presentation.

Definitely we'll have a recap and watch the video.

Uh thank you guys for joining us.

Appreciate it.

Um, detain me a little bit there.

Well, guys, I got a lot of text though.

Thank you guys for all being here.

We're in full force today.

That is great.

Uh, did we do roll call ready?

We did not, we just went straight into the presentation so we can work backwards and do roll call now that we have all that.

We can't Patricia Carter Greeker, present.

Michelle Burdot, present.

Welcome.

And I said your last name correctly, right?

Bird X.

Bird X.

Okay, amazing.

I was trying to make it fancy.

Marquise Dennis, yes, Dwayne Dickens, Simone Gitten's, sorry, I didn't hear you.

Thank you.

Brian Humphrey, present, Margaret Love, Tracy Love Chandler, Larissa McNeil, John Paul Ray, President, Jimmy Listucky, Mike Hel Vaughn, present, Mabel Wallace, Judy Williams, present, Tony, Christy Williams, Tony Williams, Ray Kell Wilson.

Awesome.

So we're we're here today.

Thank you guys for all being here for the meeting here.

Well, they sing on the minutes here.

Um, and we can just switch with you know, I'm not sure.

Okay, if someone has any uh changes or they were proposed there, I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes as presented.

Oh move.

We have a second.

I second.

All right.

Discussion there.

All in favor, please say aye.

All right.

All right.

The next thing I'll do here.

We will skip down the presenter for about a women's justice probe project.

It should be here voluntarily.

But we'll go ahead and scroll go down to the executive committee report.

And myself as chair there, but we did meet as a focus committee there, which is which is the all the chairs from all the different various different committees, which are education, culture, and policy.

So some were not there, but we had a decent group though.

We were in there.

We sent out sent out an email to those who are a part of the committee there to follow up.

We'll have a follow-up meeting on July the 16th there at 10 o'clock.

Did discuss like census, just kind of giving you guys a broader review of what we've discussed there.

So our survey, we are kind of working in partnership.

Like I said, before the last um last meeting there, trying to partnership with Burnham Todd, who's on behalf of the mayor's office, was kind of giving some insight or things that some uh flavor of what they're looking for, some things that could help them from their position there.

Uh and looking to also make sure that this is something that GTAC uh has ownership of and we feel comfortable with, and something we possibly can do for maybe uh every year or two years.

Um, as kind of a benchmark, um, you know, and getting information from the community uh about the conditions that are positive and also conditions that are maybe permit or community there, uh and also just a benchmark of of where uh residents are who are African Americans in Tulsa.

Um and so uh that kind of give us a better picture of uh how we can target our efforts in the city uh and kind of move forward on some things we want to move forward with.

Um, you have you have anything to add there or sorry.

Okay, okay.

Awesome, awesome.

Um so we'll go skip down to go to our.

Oh, also by the way, by the way, uh we'll say that um actually I'll I'll hold off on that at this point in time.

We'll go down to the next uh list of item on the agenda.

Um policy policy committee, committee reports there, policy committees uh number one on the list there.

Yeah, um, we haven't met yet.

We'll meet this week uh for June.

Uh but I anticipate that we'll discuss some of the things we've discussed the very strategic planning events such as uh census and kind of next steps, current events that are going on, some uh we've talked about uh local elections as well and the impact of that, and so now that we're past the elections and seeing that how can we grow and continue to see what's going on in the candidates from that.

Um, not a whole lot of updates.

Um, currently in conversation with Dr.

Gilwin at Tulsa Community College, who heads the National Association for Black Journalists, and we're connecting with him to see how we can um continue to spread our newsletter and other updates from GTAC and just see how we can broaden um our reach in that regard.

So updates as I have them on that, and then we have so one of the things we're working on is our um organizational database, but we have talked about kind of extending expanding that to uh kind of a black Tulsa guy, um, reminiscent of the bi-black Tulsa guide that Nico Asamoa Caesar had created, spearheaded rather.

Um so we're looking at how we can create like a guide to um places, events, green book, eventually.

Essentially, um, a modern day green book, if you will.

Um so that's something that we are starting conversations with and like figuring out how we can do that.

Um so that is what I have.

Do you have anything?

That is it for us there.

Okay, great.

And an education uh community education is skill building education committee.

Yeah, so not a lot of update from us.

I know that one of the big things for at least from our standpoint is that we should are able to get our meetings on the calendar.

They work for everybody, so those will be on the first Monday of every month.

If you want to attend, I know it's a committee, but it's open to all of the folks that's important to attend.

Um I'm happy to send you all the invites.

The other good thing is that uh over the course of the next couple months, kind of quiet, but we will be um preparing for um why am I blanking the educator?

The educator's award, too.

It has been a very long day.

Very long and started very early.

But um Tracy Love Chandler is helping to spearhead that work, and I'm hoping that we all have the commission by people to support her.

Um that work, yes.

Tracy, did I miss anything?

No, no, other than we did communicate about um collaborating with some community back to school events.

Um, and then we've already seen C sent the letter out to the mayor on June 10th, and I see see the chair and our president on the email requesting I hadn't got a response back, so I'm sending another one and adding you, Lexi, in case there's a connection with the mayor's secretary or uh assistant or something that you may have.

We're asking him early to get on his calendar for October.

We're trying to get ahead of the game, and I've even uh listed in the letter to avoid our meeting date.

And then also um the uh chairs asked me to set up a like a Zoom call virtually with uh Dr.

Wimberley.

The committee discussed that to uh kind of get her ideas on what this award named in her honor looks like and what she would like to see and what are her thoughts thus far.

So that sounds beautiful.

I'm glad that that's continuing and I do do uh support it financially and should have money.

Thank you, thank you.

Because I I sorry I just will add to that.

I'm not okay.

Um, but I know that you Lexi and I spoke last year actually about it and about having like a physical award because we know that other committees do when like we were a little late to the draw there, but having that conversation maybe with the chair and the vice chair, around that uh as well would be great, and I would financially support that too if there's something we need to do.

Yeah, trying to get an early start.

You think we'll look at the one.

Oh, that's our words.

I think that's it for education committees.

Um at the committee.

I think we're okay, okay.

Uh then we will go to, I guess the the human rights commission there.

Um do ever if we have reports.

I do not have an update because I had a work meeting that conflicted with this meeting.

Um, but in our next newsletter, I will have whatever updates were there.

So just look out for the next newsletter for updates on the human rights commission.

Okay, that'd be that'd be great.

Great there.

Um we are kind of rolling through this here.

Um, I will um go to the next item there.

So it's an action here, and uh Larissa is the commissioner, Bruce McNeil has represented us off on the human rights commission um uh recently, and there's been asked for the mayor's office, it's been asked for the mayor's office that we actually take a vote as a commission on our representative for the human rights commission there.

Um, so um didn't I?

I'm sorry, what do you mean?

Isn't she the representative?

She is a representative, and it's a reappointment.

So it's a pre-appointment of a commissioner for the human rights commission.

It's been asked, it's been she you have reapplied, right?

Correct, she did reapply there.

She did reapply a nomination but I'm saying we've been asked from the mayor's office.

To take an official vote.

That's what I that's why I'm saying.

Go ahead.

Yeah, I I can help clarify.

I love the response of like if it's Larissa, not gonna interview it.

Um basically the the mayor's office would just love to see like a standardized process across the title five commissions because some of them have taken a formal vote in the past some of them just say hey you you're gonna do it and you know it's like they just wanted something kind of formal on the record that as a body you all are officially like endorsing or recommending whoever you choose to apply and represent your commission on the human rights commission so they're just it's just standardizing the process across all the commissions and having that formal vote on the record okay so we'll there might be an I'll make a motion.

So I think all those in favor say aye.

Okay it passes motion passes.

So Commissioner Larissa McNeil will be our representative of the human rights commission.

Thank you thank you for doing that thank you for serving in uh being so available also do want to highlight she also does this newsletter for us I do want to highlight that something that you know uh she kind of grazes over but does a great job at this monthly for that also if you have any material you want to add to the newsletter please send that to uh commissioner McNeil.

Also I need a hit shot from everybody because me trying to find y'all pictures on the internet is an ordeal.

Okay I need a hit shot from everybody.

My goal is to continuously highlight the work of the commissioners so that's why each month there's a different person highlighted I want to share what y'all are doing the work y'all are doing across the the city so I would love a picture you would like to be included in this newsletter if at all possible thank you for finding good pictures it was on your LinkedIn so I figured that was okay.

And if I can insert myself on the topic of pictures um we have a full commission today so we might want to take advantage of that and take a photo.

I don't think this is how we're we have our new commissioners here today so I'm gonna throw that out on the table if we could find five minutes yeah if everyone can stick around five minutes afterwards that'd be great I think it'd be yeah to take a picture there yeah we are yeah we're so a 17 right now was it 15 17 17 15 yeah that's great and I would like to add that commissioner and I grew up together we're a childhood friends since kindergarten or first grade and so we have uh remained in touch and connected and it's like uh we may not have talked in a month but when we see each other it's just like the the next day so very happy to see her and look forward to working with you commissioner giddens that's great we have a little extra time do you want to introduce ourselves I guess or do you like to say about yourself commission commissioner to hiel breadx I know quite a few people in here um I'm honored to be a part of the group I absolutely um love the work that you're doing I want to learn more um definitely want to um help um and join whatever committee has the most need um I could fit into education easily fit the culture I just want to be useful um and be an asset to the organization but I'm honored to be here I absolutely love Tracy and Mother Love and Jamila and Mikhail and every I mean you have a really good strong group thank you so much for helping us out recently um so I'm honored to be a part of make a move for policy council and I was going to say what you do so I am the uh program coordinator for the Green Book Cultural Center where I have served for the past 30 years.

I start up as our onsite historian and and tour guide and create um after school and summer programming um for children in our community.

Um so this um in July we will host the 1619 project um school edition summer program at TSAS, Tulsa School for Arts and Sciences.

Um I recently graduated from the African American Leadership Academy and I'm to do that so um aside from that, I am the current president for the NAACP uh branch here um that we have recently relaunched and look to be um actively engaged in representing our secondary and fighting for our commission.

Thank you.

Wow, that's glad to have you.

We're glad to have you.

Thank you for joining us.

Thank you for joining us, Commissioner.

Uh so we do we have any old business?

Um, can we hear from oh, Commissioner?

Commission Commissioner, yes, yes, yes, go ahead.

Okay, um, hi, it's Simone.

Um, like Sam and Newtulson, I've been here for about three and a half, four years, maybe some around there.

Um I work in higher education at an ed tech company in admissions.

Um in Tulsa, I do like to get really involved.

Um right now I am on the leadership team for Tyros, so DEI um co-chair currently um also part of the Salesforce, Leadership Tulsa 360 L T was it, LT70 class 75.

Okay.

Um I do a lot of things.

I just like to evolve.

Um, aren't you a part of another organization as well?

You like lead things for that organization too?

Um, also part of the junior league.

Okay, yeah.

Do you want to help her?

She needs a whole thing on the junior league.

Like she's I don't even understand.

I'm the president of the junior league.

Honestly, but yeah, part of the junior league.

I will be doing um the advancement team this year.

Some of the folks like understand commission, like get involved in Tulsa.

Um, here through Tulsa Remote and super involved with them too.

And that is all that I officially have to give right now.

Unless you have something else.

I won't add anything else.

I'll leave that.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you so much for that.

Um, this is your second your second meeting here too, correct?

Yes.

Okay, secondly your first day, but that's awesome.

Um business there, you know, I want to say I give a shout out to this young man sitting here.

He's done a great job.

I think uh every time I get a piece of paper to me like you all, he is.

But again, what the work he's doing, uh I mean I do y'all know what he does.

Let him explain, but he's doing an awesome job.

I don't give people credit unless I feel they are in so uh you went up or not.

I made my heart happy.

Tell them what you do.

I'll explain what you do.

So Birthright Living Legacy is a fatherhood celebration support organization.

We cultivate community for dads uh to uh ensure that they have positive or formative uh parenting cycles uh so that we can shave the community from the inside out by making sure that we create uh lasting legacy one father at a time.

You just had your event your father's.

Yeah, we just had our uh love lottery sweepstakes, which is our uh annual um father of the year um opportunity.

Uh and so what we do is in March, uh February or 1st of March after my birthday, we start taking nominations from families uh because we've learned that the worst thing you could do is try to honor somebody and their family be like the beautiful.

So we make sure that it is uh an award that is being presented by us from their family uh so that they have an opportunity to honor them in word but also in deed.

Um so we give them gifts, prizes.

Uh we have roughly about 10 to 15,000 dollars in gifts that we collect throughout the year uh from partners and organizations and then we give them a thousand dollars cash so that they can uh not have to cash it and put it in the family account.

They can just take the money and do whatever they need to do.

And so uh, but yeah, it was a really great showing.

We uh were at Five Oaks Lodge, we had 156 of the 160 seats filled.

Oh wow um so we sold out, uh, and so we're super excited, and it's just a great way to you know uh celebrate dads and we make sure that every table placement has a Father's Day card that they can give away to their own dad or somebody in the community that they see doing a great job.

So that's great, actually.

Thank you for thank you for sharing that.

Um our next speaker just showed up here.

So we're gonna put you up here.

Yeah, if you can.

So come on up if you can.

Ms.

Park Elder, um, the battered women's justice project, uh, and we will set up sooner.

Okay.

Sure.

Thank you for joining us on those.

No, thank you for making time.

I'm glad I made it just at the right time.

I was um at Restore Hope Ministries doing a listening session with survivors, um, and so uh they had so much to share, and it felt criminal to cut them off.

But I said I have another really important group I need to go talk to, so you guys have to let me go.

Um my name is Amaldi Parker Elder, and I work for the Better Women's Justice Project, but we mostly go by BWJP now.

Um we recognize that our name is a little dated, but it's the name everybody in the country is used to.

We are a national legal resource center, so we house seven national centers that focus on specific areas that intersect with gender-based violence, and we use the term gender-based violence to cover domestic violence, dating violence, um trafficking, sexual violence.

Like it's you know, we we deal with everything, even though a lot of times communities are just taken on intimate partner violence.

We address all forms of gender-based violence, and these are seven centers.

I direct the advocacy center on systems change and advocacy.

Um, and what's really at the core and the root of our approach to systems change work is developing coordinated community responses where we bring all stakeholders who touch the domestic violence as an issue who are working with either survivors or harmdoers as well.

Um, and bring all of these various different multidisciplinary stakeholders together to understand what each other's roles are and to understand where the limitations are and where you know where one agency might not be able to continue a response, another community member could.

And so that is coming together in practice here in Tulsa.

Um we were brought to Tulsa uh by Divis and the George Kaiser Family Foundation at the end of 2023 at Mayor Vynham at the time.

Um, I think he went to tour Divis uh the domestic violence intervention services and their shelter, learned about really the state of crisis that Oklahoma is in, being I I think uh the um homicide rate has dropped from second place to third place, but still ranking one of the highest states in the country for rates uh rates of domestic violence incidents happening.

Um and I we always talk about the population size of Tulsa and OKC.

Uh you know, why you might be leading the state with just sheer population size, but nevertheless, the highest numbers are also in Tulsa County.

So we so the mayor at the time appointed 11 different agencies to what he was terming a commission, uh initially, but we we have made a collective decision, and Mayor Nichols supports the idea that we stay a task force, um, not a commission that would be a public body, right?

Operating like you all and open to the public, and it's because we have a lot of buy-in and uh I was gonna say the word transparency, and it is transparency, and it's uh a willingness to share information, data, access to case files, how they respond, you know, how their agencies are structured and organized.

And admittedly, if we were a public body, that level of openness and sharing really wouldn't be there, and so collectively with the mayor, uh, this group made a decision to keep doing the good work we're doing and not let uh fancy kind of like title be something that felt more important to us to be an official city commission than to be able to just accomplish the work that we're that we're trying to do.

So the 11 agencies that were initially appointed, and this this group in the blue box, and I'm so sorry that the font is so tiny, but I'm gonna say what the agencies are.

Uh, these agencies were appointed uh by then Mayor Vynam.

And actually, Mayor Nichols is going to be signing a new executive order, kind of covering in a little more formally what this task force is going to be tomorrow, uh, Thursday, actually, at our quarterly meeting on Thursday.

Um, so I say that to say there might be more agencies involved in this task force after the new executive order goes through.

I do know, like, for instance, uh the mayor's very interested in trying to get representation from the tribes and consider potential other potential community partners as well.

So the original 11 groups were um TPD, and it's it's really the agency heads that were appointed that sit in this space.

So it's the chief of police, it's the DA, the sheriff, the head judge of district court was appointed, um, but they put the DV court judge in her place.

Um the sheriff, DHS, and on the community side, Divis, the family safety center, where they do protection orders and a number of other things.

Um, still she rises, Justice Link and the Native Alliance Against Violence, um, which is a statewide coalition.

From there, we asked all of the appointed members to assign a representative to a working group because we're like, it's great to have the buy-in from decision makers and the people who are gonna say yes or no to any kind of reforms we might want to make, but the people who actually really understand what is happening day to day in the response on the system side, on the community side in Tulsa, are those you know, on-the-ground responders.

Um, and so that working group is now uh it's so robust.

I think there's maybe 70 listed partners across 30 plus organizations, and we continue to invite people.

We just met with four or five new organizations today, a lunch hosted by Restore Hope Ministries, and they are all incredibly excited to get involved, and uh that brings me really to why I'm even here wanting to speak with you all tonight and to let you know about this work that's happening in the city is we are our approach at BWJP is to be survivor-centered or just basically human-centered, that systems and complex systems like the criminal legal system or even protection order systems, um, child welfare, they're designed in a certain way that's not based on the lived reality of what day-to-day life is or what experiencing violence is.

Um, and so our approach is to get communities as grounded in the real lived reality of what is happening for survivors, their partners, their children, and bring that back to the systems, which I would say includes like some of our advocacy shelter programs because they operate very much like systems now, as opposed to you know, just grassroots.

We have an open door here to help.

There's there's structures and processes in place, even to access that kind of help as a survivor.

So uh for us, what we've been really trying to focus on in this last year is community outreach.

We're trying to connect with as many of the different diverse communities in Tulsa as we can.

We're trying to actually just get to the people, is what I've been saying.

Because for I've been here now since um, well, I don't live in Tulsa, but I come so often, it feels like a second home now.

Um, I've been coming since January 2024.

So it's about two and a half years of us saying, you know, introduce us to your partners in the community, introduce us to the community centers or um the faith communities that have leadership in Tulsa that people are listening to, or whatever the informal entities might be where people actually get to be in community here in Tulsa, like you know, your community isn't your police station and uh the core, and so as we've been trying to push for that, um, we asked the city to start connecting us to the culturally specific commissions, like, we want you to just under, you know, be aware of the work that we're doing, um, and if you know people that are doing good supportive work, and not just for survivors, like if they're I I was listening to your um program about fathers, and that feels like an another excellent potential partnership because the prevention side is going to be that part where we're engaging whole communities and whole families and not waiting right until after the crisis to respond.

So, um, I know my time is almost up, and I'm I'm happy to come back another time to provide any other information you all might want to know what the deeper work of our subcommittees are.

We're we're doing a lot of good things with um all three of our committees.

One focusing on the criminal legal system, one where we're reviewing domestic violence homicides that have occurred in Tulsa, and one where we are trying to actually get really solid coordination and referral processes in place between service providers in Tulsa and not just the DV-specific ones.

We're trying to bring in as many different resources as possible so that we just have a you know as many open doors for survivors as they need because it's housing, it's employment, it's income, it's transportation, it's paying bills and utilities, right?

And they can't get to, and many of the survivors tonight even talked about it that there's no getting to a place of healing or reflecting on oh, this is a situation I should be out of until you're out of crisis, and like basic needs have to be met first before you can even get to the place to breathe long enough to say I need to change my situation.

Um, and so this is not from our Tulsa work, but I started this work out uh years ago for the city of New Orleans, uh, coordinating a project very similar to this for the city of New Orleans, and at that time, I mean the rates have not really changed, but at that time we were trying to address the really disproportionately high arrest rate of black women for domestic violence in New Orleans, uh, and there was this huge disconnect between all system responders and advocates believing there's something called Mad Day, where uh black women or women in New Orleans are they're not real survivors, they're actually more aggressive than the men here, they fight, they don't flee, and they're not really experiencing violence when they call, they're calling because they're mad, it's mad day.

Uh, you know, child support wasn't paid, they don't like the new woman, their partners talk like, and of course, all of the advocates and community leaders that we were working with were just completely opposite, like absolutely not.

They would never just call the police to call.

That's gonna be an absolute last resort if their life is on the line, and to try to start closing that gap and to try to set a stage for having a conversation in New Orleans around this issue that is completely preventing police from seeing uh self-defense when they're out investigating, etc., we created an adaptation of the original power and control wheel that was developed in the 80s, and so the original wheel is everything but that gray outer circle.

Um, but inside the spokes of the wheel are examples of each of those different types of abuse that black women themselves were sharing with us in New Orleans, and so this is uh I have to always make sure there's some clarity around it that it is a tool that people who identified as being black and a woman talked about their experience and their intimate partner relationship, whether they were with a man or a woman.

Those examples came straight from them.

And so there's some terminology in there.

Some people weren't sure that we should use, but it's meant to be a reflection of what people are experiencing in the community, and the wheels also meant to try to show that the interconnections between the different forms of oppression for the black community are intricately connected to their experiences of intimate partner violence.

So I just want to share this resource because it's something that is meant to be a tool where if somebody's not sure about what they're experiencing, sometimes it's used as a tool so they can look at it and say, Oh, so there is coercive control going on here, and it's also meant to educate others who may not understand the complexity of the intersections of different things for the black community.

So if you all are interested, you want to look at this more closely, I'm happy to send it to Brian, or if you all have the deck, you know, have more questions about it, please don't hesitate to let me know.

But I would say that I know there's so much culturally here in Tulsa, and like I said, it's just been hard for us to connect with community and with local people to really have you all say to us, this is what's really happening, this is what we need you to be focusing on.

This is what we need you to look for.

So we I'm open, it's an open invitation anytime for uh you all to share thoughts with us, connect us to people in the community that you think we should be connected to, and like I said, informal connections doesn't have to be uh a 501c3, like just who are the respected people in Tulsa that we should be connected to.

So I'll leave it there, and thank you so much for squeezing me in on your agenda last minute.

Um, our organization is based in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, but many of us work remotely all around the country, so I'm currently in California now.

And my other colleagues who are here, Rosario just left for the airport today, and we have another colleague coming tomorrow.

She's in Minnesota.

Um, our chief strategy officer, Suja Warriors in New Jersey.

So we're we're really all over the country right now.

I had a question of what role does the health care specifically middle health care.

I work at a hospital in just last week.

Two people that I encountered, one lady after an assault who became so sad, she ended up in psychiatric hospital and missed her date for the retractor.

So just trying to communicate with the courts and all of that, but I don't know if there's a consortium of all the hospitals together, uh, you know, but just a way to include the uh medical part who may see people come through both for the middle health support as well.

I know another lady, still she rises, worked very well with me.

She actually had a court date while there, and I was able to give them an update that she was able to present for for someone.

So, um, yes, that the healthcare system has often done its own coordinating internally around DV and has stayed a bit of a silo apart from this work that has built up from when they passed the violence against women act back in the 90s, it became such a focus on the criminal legal system is how we're gonna respond, safety and accountability, and that can only come from arrests and prosecutions and locking people up.

And so, although the healthcare system on its own has over time been like, oh, we should start putting in risk screening questions and we should start looking for this.

These are still two completely siloed responses, but it is something that we have started uh recommending to the task force and to George Kaiser Foundation, which is we have to start addressing that, and it's the emergency rooms, but it's also just your providers because a lot of women are gonna um disclose to their health care provider more so than they're gonna want to call the police.

So it's on the agenda to come, and we're starting to meet people in the health department, meet local health care workers.

Um we're trying to connect to the promoteras at El Centro and build up their capacity, so it's important.

Um, still she was.

Oh well uh blue shoes.

Oh, okay, yeah.

Um, so it's really full information.

And maybe there's a way to collaborate or share information with our education committee.

I love that.

Yes, I'm open to continuing the conversation, and like I said, if there's I mean, obviously, there these are both entities housed under the mayor, so I you know, I think the connection should be there, but in my first conversation, we just identify probably a lot of different areas where it seemed like there could be some synergy to maybe have some shared shared goals, or maybe even formally take on an aspect, and that is a little bit why I shared the wheel because I wanted to give an example of how this kind of work can also like lead into more uh intentional initiatives for specific communities within the bigger work.

So I'm super open to having those conversations with you all.

I like the wheel and I use it because I a lot of people just simply it's so violence that we like physical violence, but there's emotional, there's psychological, there's sexual, there's financial, and so I use that will, but I love a copy of that more extensive.

Sure.

Yeah, I will absolutely share that with you all.

Or I think any other questions, we can definitely do that.

Thank you so much.

I'm uh told me to be able to uh, okay, we will have a lot of people.

Yeah, and um, and it's I think also mother um mothers in North Tulsa.

I think it's even more specific to specifically.

Yeah, if you can say afterwards, that'd be great.

Uh we are kind of a little sorry, I guess we with the things, but we if you stick around for us, maybe thank you so much.

We'll make sure to share this uh out there.

Um, I know it's I can share the slides and follow up with if that's good with you.

Yeah, you can share the slides.

But um I will still let me I'll send it to you now.

Let me send you the full wheel that's not in the slide, so if they you don't want to use that as a resource, okay.

That would be that would be great.

Thank you so much there.

Um, um new business there, just uh so we can kind of wrap up here.

I know where we're kind of a little bit over time right now, but if anyone has any new business they want to share, um I do have an update.

The Rooster Regional Library will be closing this Saturday until the fall.

So um we will be opening, I don't know the date you but we'll be opening in the fall.

Um, and so I just wanted to let you know that we are officially closed after this Saturday.

Looking forward to the new building.

It's gonna be a great building.

I'm really excited to be clear when you say reopen in the fall, it will be in the new building, or okay.

We will be opening our new building in the fall.

Okay, thank you.

Announcements there, who knows what's gonna arrive in the announcements.

I'll go to public comments if we have public who wants to speak, or have any comments there?

I'd like to uh eventually officially announce that um Excellence Academy uh launched yesterday.

Um we are in a bridge here.

Excellence Academy is a pre-K through 12.

Um black-led community built private Christian school that's coming to North Tulsa.

We'll be in the edge of rig facility next summer.

Um we'll be going to school year-round.

Um we are gonna be able to add 354 more instructional hours for our North Tulsa kids every single year in order to help them catch up and eventually succeed the way that they should have in our community, as well as capture all of the school choice dollars that have been released in our state specifically and that are coming through the uh the big beautiful bill with the federal tax scholarship that's coming in January of 2027.

So we're really excited.

Look for the uh all the the social media blitz and uh my daughters are our mavens in social media campaigning and everything else.

So you'll see it.

It's the excellence academy black panthers, and um we're gonna we we have to bring it to the town.

We're ready to bring it and restore Black Wall Street from an educational perspective because North Tulsa does not have enough school choice.

Yes, thank you for sharing that.

Uh all right, at this point, then I'll entertain a motion for to adjourn.

I'll make a motion.

Motion okay.

It was second.

Any discussion?

All right.

All the favor say aye.

Aye.

Oppose.

All right.

Pinterest.

The meetings adjourned.

In his report on O