January 12, 2026 — Human Relations Commission Regular Meeting

Transcript

Manually captioned by City of Boulder staff. All segments attributed to uploader — not individual speaker labels. [MM:SS] timestamps correspond to the YouTube recording.

[0:00] 10 p.m. on January 12th, 2026. And we herefor call call to order this meeting of the human relations commission of the city of Boulder. Looks like all five of us are in attendance. Carlos, Mindy, Jorge, and Emily. Um great. Um I think uh first order is agenda adjustments. Does anybody have any adjustments that need made to the agenda? >> No. >> No. Okay. Seeing Seeing none, uh we can move forward to the approval of minutes. Um do I hear a motion to approve the U minutes from December 15th meeting? I move to approve them. >> I second. >> Okay. All in favor of approving the

[1:01] minutes. The >> I see five. Yes. The yeses have it. Um cool. So the minutes are approved and we will now move into open comment. Um seems like we have one person for open comment. Um uh Lynn has her hand raised. We'll hear from Lynn and then Mark after Lynn. So, Elizabeth will promote. Um Oh, yeah. Do you read this, Elizabeth? >> Do I do this? >> Yep. No, I'm doing it. Sorry. Just managing. Um, for anyone watching this evening, we just had a kind of last minute change up in um, meeting coordination. Um, and so my apologies for any delays kind of juggling between

[2:00] screens. Elizabeth Crowe, uh, City Boulder Housing and Human Services, I'll be stepping in for Christian Phillips this evening. Um, so before we begin, um, just a quick review of the public public participation guidelines. The city has engaged with community members to co-create a vision for productive, meaningful, and inclusive civic conversations. This vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members, staff, and board commission members, as well as democracy for people of all ages, identities, lived experiences, and political perspectives. My apologies. For more information about this vision and the community engagement process, please visit https/bouldercol.gov/services/productive atmospheres. Uh so each speaker and looks like we

[3:00] have two um will have three minutes to be able to share. I will use my cell phone to um to time and do a gentle um uh come off mute again um when the 3 minutes are up to let speakers know their their time is up. I will stop sharing my screen and um Aaron will go we have Mark Fior and Lynn Seagull. Um who would you like to hear from first? >> Yep. Uh Lynn, um you had your hand raised, so we'll bring Lynn in first. Just a reminder to um our attendees to speak slowly and clearly so there's time for the interpreters to um interpret you. Looking forward to hearing your statements >> and Lynn, you should be allowed to talk. >> Thanks, Erin. Um I'll try to be explicit. I wish my image was on the screen. And I want to see you. I want to see who I'm addressing, please. So would

[4:00] you adjust that? >> Um I'm not sure how to adjust, Lynn. I should be able to see um >> I can see you now. Now I see my >> If you move to gallery view, you'll be able to see all of us. >> Hang on. I can't access gallery view. >> You have to do it at your end. >> Unfortunately, I think that's a setting um that you'll have to make on your computer. >> No, it's not on mine. I can do it on every other city board. And I just testified on TAB and I just testified on Prairie Dogs. Wait, did I I I need to get to Prairie Dog. So, could you please hurry get screen up to see you? >> Let me try. Okay. Thanks, Lynn. Let me try here. Let's see. How's that? >> Yay. Did it. Sweet. >> I'm gonna stop the watchover and then start your time right uh right now. >> So, okay. So, I don't Thank you, Elizabeth. Um, so I don't know if if I

[5:00] should talk about homelessness or if I should talk about my situation with my retrofit, but I guess I'll um talk about the all of them. I feel kind of homeless because I'm in my house for 25 years. Okay, 25, count them. And um I've got a long-term everyone, you know, has an internal financial plan. And it might be very complex for some people. Well, I mine was stymied because I got an energy retrofit of $55,000. I waited a year for it. It's free. You know, they give it to you. I waited a year to see if I was eligible. Then once I got it, they said, "Well, there's only one caveat. You can't be involved in any of it, and you even have to be off the property." They put me up in a hotel I didn't want to go. I have three bedrooms I can live in. They let my housemates stay from from Munich. Um that like unbelievable. When

[6:00] I tell my friends all over the community about this, no one can believe it. Um they put a mini split in my dining room which I don't use. They put an air handler upstairs. I have a thousand foot main house and it has a gas furnace so it didn't need much. But the the added the addition had resistive heat which is very energyintensive and I won't use for 25 years. I'm serious about that. But they didn't consult me because I was being gaslighted by the county. And I was being gaslighted by the county because I I exposed them in their energy retrofit program 10 years ago whereby they were forcing one of their vendors to do a solar install under adverse conditions which would have put the vendor at liability and you know for their warranty and and I couldn't believe it. They wouldn't tell me why they had dropped that vendor after I had spoken to the vendor at length. Um, so I was angry that my time

[7:02] was wasted and and the vendor said they were being forced to do this job under adverse conditions. So then the county was mad at me for being mad, so they gaslighted me. 10 years later, I find out through the Care Colorado affordable residential energy program that I'm eligible, but I'm gaslighted. Well, it's just a disaster. in my attic. I plan to pop up that space for storage so that I can get a new roof, which I've needed for 15 years, so that I can get solar, so that I can fuel a geothermal heat pump. But it's a long-term thing. I have $900,000, but I'm not going to put it into geothermal heat pump until I know my whole financial situation. My kid's father wanted abortions, then he beat me up, then he fought me for custody. So, I feel very responsible for these kids. And if they if they can live two more weeks of their life on 9 minutes, that's more important to me because of climate

[8:00] change. So I'm dedicated this and I'm very upset as a human. My you know that's my relationship with the city of >> Sorry, your three minutes are up. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Yeah, thanks for thanks for your comment, Lyn. And I'm sorry I to go through all that, but I appreciate you bringing all of it forward. Um we will now hear from Mark. Hi, Mark. Can you hear us? >> I can. Can you hear me? >> We can. >> All right. Howdy, folks. Uh, I wasn't actually intending on speaking, but I'll just say a few words. Um, first of all, congratulations, Aaron, on your ascension to the high office of chair. Um and um just a a general comment that you know when I I talk to people in the room community about different boards and commissions, of course they haven't heard of the vast majority of them, certainly not yours. And I would love to see and this is

[9:00] perhaps a city council issue because they're in the midst still of dealing with boards and commissions and changing policies, but I' I'd love to see the HRC get more uh visibility in the community. Um I I don't think I've ever talked to anyone who knew that you all existed, let alone what you do. So, just saying it's good work that you're doing and I'd love to see more people uh find out about you and maybe even huge huge ask here, but maybe even have them comment to to you all about the work you're doing. That's all. Thanks. >> Thank you so much for for your comment, Mark. I think you might enjoy some of the things we discussed in our work plan. We're talking a lot about visibility, but appreciate you you naming all of that. um wondering if we have any um more comments, any responses from other other commissioners or from from staff. >> I'd just like to um speak to Lynn to

[10:02] your comment about the retrofitting and the contractors. First, I'm really sorry about your experience. That's sounds like a very destabilizing experience to have happen. um with the county program and in your own home. So, I'm sorry to hear about that. And I I work in building decarbonization. I can tell you that unfortunately you're not alone in um at least from the contractor perspective um in quite varied um experiences with different contractors. I do want to let you know um about the program that I work for, which is Powerhead Colorado. um it's a another federal program, but one of the attributes or programs does have energy advising. So that might just be a program that you and other community members u might be interested in and

[11:00] there is a contractor portion making sure that contractors are all doing viable, highquality, trustworthy work. So again, sorry to hear about your experience, Lynn. That sounds um awful as an understatement and um I hope that you're able to resolve it and and come to a good place. Our housing is a human right and to have the comfort um especially in extreme temperatures um is also a human rights issue. So, thanks for coming to speak with us. >> Awesome. Um, looks like no further comments. One last chance. Um, okay. Well, thank you Lynn and Mark once again for for coming and joining us. Uh, we will now move into our next session which is action items. Um, and our one

[12:00] primary action item for this week is reviewing and approving the 2026 work plan. So, um, we'll move into that. Um uh we had the draft that um that I put together last time with some work from and then me and um Mindy have uh did some revising. Mindy did some really good things to make sure we had like clear uh objectives objectives and action items so we have a little bit more structure. Um and so um I can share my screen. I'll send a request um and we can take a look over that. Um, Mindy, you anything you want to mention before we start sharing this? >> No, I think our aim was to try to take in some of the feedback that we heard in the last meeting. Um, and hopefully we accomplish that, but if we didn't, we certainly are looking for feedback. So, >> fantastic. Um, is this showing up? Well, let me see if I can. Yeah. So, make that a little big. Wait, is this I'm showing

[13:00] a different thing. Am I showing the wrong thing? Wait. Yeah. No, I think this is right. You're seeing the HRC work plan. Okay, cool. >> And uh Erin, sorry to interject, but if you're wondering who the other who the other icons at the top belong to, I I shared the document just prior to the meeting with our interpreters so they could just have a quick scan before they the meeting. >> Great. >> Cool. So, um, what we're looking at for the HRC work plan, we kind of like distilled our our purpose, core purpose of the HRC to foster a more connected, and inclusive Boulder where all community members feel heard, supported, and empowered to participate, especially those whose voices are most often overlooked. Um, and then again, our focus areas were bridging vertical gaps, which is community to government institutions. at some of that visibility work that Mark mentioned, bridging horizontal gaps, community to community. Um, some of the difficult dialogues kind of worked and supporting marginalized and underrepresented communities. I appreciate that Lynn spoke in regards to

[14:02] homeless communities as well. Um, so it's like all this is included. So, we can start going into uh the three of these. I'm curious if anybody has any highle thoughts about that core the language of the core purpose and those focus areas before I just start diving into the sections. Great. So, seeing none, I'll just keep moving on. Um, so again, bridging vertical gaps. What we have here is many Boulder community members experience barriers to engaging with city government. Barriers may include limited awareness of available resources, uncertainty about how to participate in civic processes, language or access challenge, or belief that their voice will not reach decision makers. The Human Relation Commission seeks to reduce these gaps by serving as a visible, accessible, and trusted bridge between community members and city institutions. So again, this speaks a lot to people not knowing what's going on in the government, but also not knowing about HRC and like the different bridges they can have. So again, kind of what Mark was voicing there. So we kind

[15:00] of like distilled as like key objectives like we want to increase awareness in the community of the HRC as well as of the human rights ordinance seeing that as one of our core responsibilities. improve community understanding of how to engage with city process and resources, strengthen communication and accountability between the HRC and city council and reduce barriers to reporting discrimination and assessing the claims process. So, just kind of seeing Yeah, it looks like you might have something to add there. >> Yeah, I just wanted to say um Elena has um raised her hand just to remind everyone to please speak slowly for interpretation. >> I will slow down. Thank you, Elena. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you for that reminder. So these are the key objectives and then for the activities what we've outlined are strengthen HRC relationship with city council through more consistent

[16:00] two-way communication, increase community awareness of the role of the HRC as well as the human rights ordinance and help community members understand how to navigate city resources, services, and pathways to increase engagement and participation. So I'd love to kind of hear what people think about this first one. And I think there's a lot of overlap in terms of the key objectives and activities. Um, which makes might make sense for this. It's important to have the objectives and sometimes the activities is just doing the thing. Um, but I'm curious what people think about this first section and like how we've outlined these objectives and activities >> or do people just think this is great. We can go ahead and say yes. Yeah. Jorge. No, I think it's fantastic, Aaron. I think that we will need to translate the activities into more concrete and objective actions >> on when, who um

[17:00] and and then you just, you know, allow us to execute better. But I think, you know, it summarizes pretty well the first point. >> Fantastic. Um I'm curious if you have any direct um things that you think might change to make that more active or if we can just save that and do that later. I >> I just think we need to reflect on you know when we mention strengthen um relationship with the city council. Okay. how we do that, you know, what kind of things we need to do to to actually strengthen that uh relationship, increase awareness, what does that mean, you know, >> right? >> That that's what >> cool. >> Yeah, I think that's a good question. Yeah, good one. I think getting clear on how we do these, I think the activities can use some some fleshing out. Um, and I think yeah, it'll be a nice point of conversation for us to like talk about. I think the key objectives are largely clear, but like getting clear on these activities might be a good little thing for us to engage in together. Did you

[18:00] have anything you wanted to add, Mindy? I saw your hand up for a second. >> Uh, pretty much that that that like not necessarily for tonight, but drilling down into what are the kinds of things we could do to increase community awareness. I mean, um, Emily and I were at the, you know, the boards and commissions vacancy event, um, the other night and we were able to speak to some people about the kinds of work we do and what other opportunities exist for us to do that kind of, um, you know, um, awareness raising. Um, I, you know, my assumption is we have no actual resources to do that. So, we're not going to like have commercials about HRC, but um but like identifying and taking advantage of all the opportunities where we can just elevate our visibility. >> Fantastic. Yeah, I think that's a great idea. I'm so glad that you two made it to that and were representing us there. >> Cool. Uh oh, yeah, Emily. Yeah, it all of our talk and um I I

[19:00] definitely agree with Jorge about having it be more specific about the activities. Um I'm I am curious about more on the process perspective of how we want to use this document. And part of why I ask is that all of these could take up I mean I don't think we would spend a ton of time on strengthening relationship especially not during our meetings but do we want to prioritize some of these activities for example or do we want to transfer them to an Excel spreadsheet and then make kind of a gant chart of times where we might prioritize certain objectives. but then also obviously the activities there in. So, um yeah, just curious uh maybe this is a question for afterwards, but I think like the work plan from my perspective is only as supportive as

[20:02] kind of how we interact with it after its creation. >> Yeah. Something I'm sensing is that it's like will be very good to make sure like the language here feels clear like the top level language and then the key objectives feel clear and then I do think having like an ongoing conversation about the activities and like just letting that be a thing that we present throughout each meeting. It's like, hey, is there any way that we feel like we might be falling short and are there any activities that we might engage in? And so I kind of imagine the the like key objectives part is a little more like static and is like cool, this feels pretty clear, but I kind of imagine the activities thing might be something that we are being a little bit more dynamic about, but this kind of gives us a frame to figure out where we want to act. I'm curious of that. Um in in some ways it does I think getting to that process level of like is this going to be a running agenda item

[21:00] for example every meeting but then also I mean bridging vertical gaps bridging horizontal gaps and engaging with and supporting marginalized communities there there can be strong overlap between those but those there are distinct work streams within each of those priorities. So are they are we holding each of them equally for example or is it okay if if for quarter 1 we only focus on bridging vertical gaps quarter two you know like I'm curious about the prioritization as well. >> Yeah. Yeah. No I think that that's good. Um, given we're like a volunteer board, like my inclination is usually like if there's if there's things that people action people want to take and things people want to lead, then like I could see this just being a frame to like help make sure people are like given some structure in which like, hey, I would like to do this initiative. Um, but

[22:01] yeah, um, I think these are great questions and we should continue to dive in. My um inclination would be to kind of continue to read so we can kind of like have the whole whole structure and then maybe look at it as a whole since it doesn't it seems like a lot of what we're looking at is overall like highle view of how we're looking at this. So it might be helpful to get the whole thing in. Does that feel right? >> Yeah. Yeah. Appreciate that process comment, Erin. And I'm curious um I don't know I guess what you I agree with what you were saying about the key objectives feeling a little more clear and then the activities so far not feeling as >> as clear. Okay, thank you. So that was kind of the first bit and this speaks to the visibility the vertical like how are we increasing awareness not just of HRC and human rights but how we're engaging and then bridging horizontal gaps um community while Boulder's diverse meaningful connection across communities does not always occur organically differences in

[23:02] culture language lived experience and political receptive can lead to misunderstanding isolation or polarization The HRC seeks to create opportunities for dialogue, relationship building, and mutual understanding across communities, particularly where connections are currently weak. One example is that while about 20% of Boulder identifies as Latinx, the connection between our Latinx community and the broader Boulder community is often weak. Our goal is to strengthen these cross community connections. So the key objectives here, strengthen cross community relationships and understanding, create spaces for respectful dialogue across difference, and address isolation experienced by specific communities within Boulder. And then what we've outlined for activities, continue the difficult dialogues project in partnership with the University of Colorado, partnership with CU, Dr. Jennifer Ho, and the interview game. strengthen connections between Latinx

[24:01] community and broader Boulder community. Support facilitated conversations that allow people with differing ideas, backgrounds, or viewpoints to listen, learn, and engage constructively. There's anything directly on there, happy to hear things, but I can also just read through the third and then we can talk talk about all it as a whole. Cool. So, the third one is supporting marginalized and underrepresented communities. Some community members are consistently less visible in civic processes and more likely to experience barriers to participation, safety, and access to resources. The HRC prioritizes centering these communities in its work, ensuring they are seen, heard, and connected to support while helping the city better understand, and respond to ensure HRC efforts center those most likely to be missed or marginalized. Elevate community concerns that may otherwise go unheard. Improve access to information,

[25:00] resources, and support and activities. Center communities most at risk of falling through systemic gaps in HRC outreach and advocacy. Support and monitor issues affecting unhoused neighbors, including engagement with the Central Park planning process. Raise awareness of community members experiencing hardship discrimination. >> Sorry to interrupt. You've asked I think we're going to be requested to slow down. Roosevelt, is that correct? >> Amazing. >> Amazing. >> Erin, one of my one of my guidance is just to count to three before starting the next sentence. That might help. >> Awesome. >> Cool. So in activities raise awareness of community members experiencing hardship, discrimination or exclusion.

[26:00] And then finally, connect individuals and communities to resources they may not know exist or feel comfortable accessing. Cool. So this is kind of like what we've outlined for these three core categories. And I think first I would feel very curious um to hear any like highlevel process perspectives of how we're orienting but then especially to hear if it feels like we got it right in terms of our key like the the first language and the key objectives. I think if we can like get clear on that then I think the activities can still use fleshed out. Um but that might be easier if we feel like we've got clarity on the key objectives and like the overall language. So would love any thoughts from people around that

[27:02] I I'll say you know I I love it you know I think it just reflects what we've been discussing nicely. Um again for me it's you know how how do we we make it life? How do we materialize that? That's for me the next step. But overall, I think it's it's pretty clear on what we want to achieve and and the top three priorities that we agreed. Awesome. Any other thoughts about high level language or key objectives? >> Yeah. Yeah. I agree with Jorge. Thank you Aaron and Mindy for encapsulating our discussions in a really coherent way. I think some of the activities could almost go up to objectives. Um, and then we could maybe leave activities pretty much blank at this point and fill in. I guess Erin, if you wouldn't mind going down to difficult dialogues. I think that's an example where it's

[28:00] like, okay, what specifically is are some next activities with difficult dialogues that we can just put in there um to show what we're doing to continue that project? I guess for for me in in project management, that's what's helpful of like how do I know I'm making progress? Oh, I'm doing, you know, are you are we meeting again with Dr. Ho? are we like assigning everyone go to to one of the conversations um you know activities like that um versus just like let's continue this project. >> Yes. Yeah. I think that's that's good. Um and at a at a personal level I I haven't been able to prioritize that one as much so I don't actually have total clarity of what the next steps are there. But I think it's a good question to be to be asking any specific things you were thinking in

[29:01] ter when you were saying some of the key objectives like I could see the strength and connections between Latinx like that being a key objective. >> That makes sense to me. >> Yeah. Same with supporting marginalized and underrepresented communities. I think there were a couple activities those objectives like center communities most at risk. >> I think this one was kind of already there. So can probably just remove this since this is a duplicate or do you prefer this language? Maybe it's like this replaces this since they're kind of >> Sure. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> That one's a little more specific. >> Yeah. Um, yeah, I still think I still think support and monitor is could be an objective. It's not particularly prescriptive. >> I think so. >> And I again I they're all really

[30:00] >> Yeah, these ones most of the actually do feel like objectives. >> Yeah. and they I think they point they point a direction in how we might operationalize or meet those objectives, but they're not, you know, we're going to look at this community survey. Um, and then write a white paper summarizing the results and present it at city council, you know, like that's the level that I've >> Yeah. And I I I do like this level of kind of like letting activities be kind of like a little bit more of a blank slate to let us all like think about this and kind of like maybe our intention can be to approve this work plan, but to like still come back to it as we like come back to it regularly as activities become more clear, but to still like move towards approving this work plan to like let our overall structure be clear. Um, do you think these do you think both of these activities might just go into cube objectives? >> These are

[31:01] >> I do think >> Yeah, >> I'm fine with that. Yeah. >> Yeah, I I think that makes a lot of sense. Um, >> Carlos, I see you're unmuted. Wonder if you have something. not um I wonder if I I imagine this supporting facilitated conversations might be a key objective which I think and I think that like kind of goes into difficult dialogues but maybe this difficult dialogues like I don't actually know what the direct action is there I think that might be a thing to bring forward so it might just kind of fit under this facilitated conversation. Um, I could see this going in here. Um,

[32:03] this is a duplicate of that. Um, and this is a duplicate of that, but I think it's better. So, I wonder how people feel about that. We're kind of taking activities. I think I would propose like just letting this one go until like the new clarity emerges, but like leaving it in here. Um, and then we're kind of left with just key objectives and centering that. Just some thoughts. Yeah. Jorge. >> No, I think that's probably why I was saying that we were missing the how because most of them were more objectives than actions. So, it makes a lot sense. So probably we need that second round of working down what are the actions and the activities that will support those objectives. >> Yeah. Yeah. So I wonder if let let's say we won't we won't move to towards a full approval

[33:00] yet but do people feel like this without any activities like what we've written here um captures what we feel the overall like mission and goal is like our key objectives. Do we feel like there's any changes that want to be made here? Yeah, Mindy, >> sorry, I raised my real hand versus my my Zoom hand. Um, uh, the only thing I would say is because we're doing this in real time, maybe, uh, you and I can have time to go back through, make sure there's not, seems like there might be some redundancy and we can kind of callull things a little bit because to Emily's point, like it could take us all of our time to do probably one of these things. And um I just want to make sure that we are wrapping our arms around like objectives and goals are fine. And um but let's just make sure we're not redundant. Um and also maybe I don't

[34:01] know where we are if we would want to prioritize in any way. I'm just raising that as a question mark. Um >> just given the breadth of this list of objectives. >> Totally. I think that's good. Um, any other thoughts? Yeah. I mean, so I I think given that there's like multiple options. We could take more time in this meeting to feel like we like really refine that or we could approve this as it is saying this is a good work plan, at least a good enough work plan. Um, and then we can always suggest changes to it in the future. like any meeting we can come back and say I think I'd like to change this and this and we can any one of us can come with suggestions and then we can approve that as a group. Um because I think it's nice to kind of have something solid. I'm not attached to that but that's how I would lean and then like around that is like

[35:02] the activities thing. We could take time today to like start to get clear on some of those activities. Or we can leave activities intentionally blank from this work plan, approve that, and then like give give ourselves space over the coming week to reflect. Um, Carlos Fore! Foreign! Foreign! See,

[36:10] okay. Awesome. Thank you, Carlos. Cool. Um, anybody else have any thoughts they want to add in here? >> Yeah, I guess for me, I'll just reiterate that I again, I appreciate the work. I think this definitely reflects our conversations we've had so far really beautifully and concisely. To your point earlier, Erin, about us being an all volunteer commission, I guess I would feel more comfortable with, and I'm leaving, so take this with a grain of salt. I'm not going to like hammer in the wheel here. Um, but I would feel more comfortable if there was

[37:00] more ownership over some of the objectives and potential delineation of activities from those objectives. Um, I think maybe like a a way we could move forward, a possibility would be for everyone to look over the key objectives between now and the next meeting and then decide on one, two, three, however many, you know, people felt comfortable with saying these are the objectives I feel really committed supporting because what we've found, what I've I've witnessed over the last few years particip ipating in this commission is in order for activities to happen, we have to be willing to step up and take leadership for them. So, it's great to have some of these objectives written down. Um, but if I don't know that I see a firm purpose unless they have, you

[38:00] know, some some potential legs. So, that's given this work plan. Again, I think it's very it's a it's a beautiful plan and I don't necessarily feel confident right now that it's going to support us unless we kind of talk more about the structure of how we might operationalize it. >> Absolutely. No, I think I think you're you're right on point there. And I think that's like an amazing piece of homework that we can all um go from here with is to like once we feel like this is clear and it's like we're orienting in the right way, then I think it would be an amazing thing for each of us to take time with this work plan um over the coming month and to really consider which of these objectives feel most important to us and to see if there's ways that we would like to lead actions um around those. I think that would be an amazing way to um to an amazing process to set in motion.

[39:02] Just one more thing um that I think like one one potential thing like we all have our our lives happening and so I know this might not be perfect but uh what might feel good for me is like if every meeting each person had something to report on each person had something to contribute and share. And so part of what I like about people taking ownership over different objectives is then you know Mindy shares out about her project and it's not just only Mindy is working on it. It's just Mindy is in ownership of you know moving things forward and taking usually these small actions that are required and then coming back to the group for consultation, discussion, encouragement, whatever whatever we need. But I I feel a little bit more energy if like you know everyone is is in in firmer

[40:02] ownership. And Elizabeth, maybe you have other insight. Maybe that's not you know something that you feel would work. I'd be curious um your kind of institutional observations. >> Yeah, thanks Emily. um in in part as you know kind of city staff had and then in part all the other you know kind of things experiences I would echo with that I think again um you talked at the retreat about kind of some options for how you wanted to use your meetings and you have a lot of latitude kind of within the the regular agenda to determine what you want to talk about some things that have I think worked in the past are when so for example for outreach and this is something that's been a part of the HRC agenda for a

[41:00] while but kind of dividing up having a conversation about well who's going to go to MLK day events this this month you know who is going to um participate in Black History Month who's you know wants to sees an opportunity to be publicly, you know, kind of badge on and and just engaging with folks. Um, those are examples, I think, already where there's been some conversation at meetings to say within an activity, right? If the activities are to be present at community events, then you can obviously go a step further and decide, well, which ones, who's going to go? And and that's one example. Um there are also some examples or will be some examples where um Christian will be um kind of picking up outreach again to go

[42:00] out into the community and um talk with organizations and and different groups about the human rights ordinance failure to pay wages um and does someone want to accompany him, right? And kind of help with that. So I mean those are just examples of where you could spend time kind of giving yourselves assignments and then use time at the meetings to have report back on learnings and again how does that advance um towards some of the objectives and and goals that that you have listed here. So, that's probably stating the obvious, but I think those just some really uh clear examples of what's in the work plan now and how you could use a table in the document or an Excel spreadsheet or something to just kind of revisit capture those learnings and have that inform what you might want to do next.

[43:00] >> Amazing. Yeah, I love those ideas. Hooray. Uh I I love it Elizabeth. I think that's that's for me the next step on building my personal plan on how do I support the goals and the objectives and have my you know clear direction and or my own set of objectives to the team and how do do each of us can collaborate but we need that objectivity on what we're going to be doing and probably we'll need you know your help Christian help or the team help for me at least that I'm I'm new to the commission on Okay, you know what's out there that I can participate, you know, uh what type of events? Uh and and then just put together that individual plan for each of us to um as as Emily was saying, just come to the meetings and and report back on that plan or personal plan. I'm I'm really looking forward for that. >> Awesome. So it sounds like there's some like good clear clear clear direction

[44:02] emerging um of we would love to like flesh out the activities and sense into which where in these objectives each of us feels like we would like to express like the most ownership and I love the ideas around like starting to like have some more structure of our meeting of like what are the objectives and activities that we're attending to and can we like report that and I was also thinking about like some of these objectives maybe stuff we're doing specifically within the HRC and the HRC activities. And also it might be interesting if like some of these objectives are things that each of us feel like we're tending to in other areas of our life and we can also like let that be like a way that we report to like include the same way that like Carlos is doing a lot of community work in the Latinx community and regularly invites us in. Um could be useful to have like this be a space. So all that all that is to say um uh how do people feel about like that being um a point of homework that we kind of like stamp this as our working

[45:03] work plan and then we um all give ourselves the next month to reflect on which of these objectives we really feel a call towards. And we come back next month with each of us saying where we feel most energized to like hold some ownership and responsibility. Um and also maybe any ideas for direct actions that we want to initiate. Does that feel like a interesting good shape to people? >> Cool. I'm seeing thumbs up. I may uh suggest probably Elizabeth Kristen during the month if you can provide us with more information about you know what traditionally can be done in each of these three you know u elements of our work plan um that can just help us you know bring more ideas or insights.

[46:03] Yeah, absolutely. That's something that we as staff would be more than happy to help with that. um I think could come in several different ways for you know in conversation with um Aaron and Carlos leading up to meetings or if there are specific questions that any of you have for us to say is there something happening that HRC member that's an opportunity ask us directly right if it's not a proactive um suggestion something that we're aware of and um we'd be happy to to provide some some guidance on that. And at the same time, I know this is a little bit of a theme for me, but just also letting you know if an idea comes up whether or not whether there is another board or commission or group that's already kind of holding that topic or that issue. um

[47:02] so that you have the option to connect with them or support again something that someone else is doing or just say great there it's happening over there now we can focus on other things so we we can help with with all of those awesome thank you Elizabeth so given all of this um I'm curious if people feel okay about moving towards approving this as our current work plan. Understanding that like it is a living document and it will change. Um, do we feel good about taking that to a vote? Um, can I hear a motion to Yeah. to approve the work plan? I see. Moved by Jorge. Do I hear a second? Okay. And Mindy seconds. Very

[48:02] good. Um, so >> also second the motion. Thank you. Uh, all in favor of approving the stated HRC work plan. Looks like it is unanimous. The work plan is approved. Given that that will conclude our action items for this section. Um, our next section is for discussion informational item. Uh, and it looks like none are in there. So, we will move into the staff update section. Anything from staff, Elizabeth? >> Yeah, just a few things. Let me bring up the slide again. See, can everybody see that? >> Um, oh, there it is. Yes. >> Great. Uh so the first thing is just to remind

[49:00] you all that we are the city is collecting applications for boards and commissions not just the HRC sadly we will have a vacancy um with Emily's uh departure from the committee uh from the commission but we are accepting applications from a number of board and commi boards and commissions and those are accepted through January 25. Um, so the link is here. Um, there's kind of one application process. Um, and so if you know of people who might be interested or organizations whose members or participants might be interested, um, please help spread the word. Um, Christian and I have a flyer that I believe he shared already. And of course, Mindy and Emily, you were at the um kind of recruitment event. But if any

[50:01] of you have ideas for things that you'd like to do, if you wanted us to draft an email that you can edit and send out to people, anything that you any support that you might need from staff in order to help get the word out would be would be great. So then um later this month, but starting very soon um we have um MLK Junior Day events. So every year the city's human relations fund which is managed by um our human services investments team here in our department supports a number of uh community celebrations and educational events. And here's a list of three um that are taking place. They're probably not the only events happening in the community, but these are three that are supported um through uh the human relations fund. The first is on January 18. Um and at

[51:00] the time I made this slide, um the time is still to be announced, but we can check on that. um with Second Baptist Church that's actually going to be held at the Jewish Community Center. On January 19, Modus Theater is um presenting um an event at the Gordon Gam Theater at the Dair Arts Center. And then Ilal Hill organization um is also having a celebration a little bit later uh on January 24 called Community Action Celebrate Diversity and Champion Equity. And that time currently is is TBA, but we'll um uh go ahead and uh check the announcement and update and that will be at Congregation um Harashm. So, those are three events um that we know of and want to be sure you are aware of. And that's all we have for today. Um if

[52:00] you have any questions, happy to answer those. But these are this is the information that uh Christian had prepared to share tonight. >> Awesome. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. >> Yep. >> Any questions for Elizabeth? Seeing none, um let's move into commissioners updates. Um anybody have an update they would like to share? >> Not updates on my side. >> I'll share an update. Um so I just wanted to brief you all. Mindy, feel free to add anything on our commissioner open house. um surprisingly well turn well turned out um for the two and a half hours. There was a fairly steady flow of interested humans. Uh unfortunately not

[53:01] too many people stopped by our table and we talked to maybe what do you think Mindy? Five people >> maybe four. Four maybe. >> Three or four. Um really really nice relationship building between Christian Mindy and I. Um, and the the couple we people we met, one person in particular, I'm really hoping applies. Um, and um, a good I think a good sign for hopefully for that event to continue in the future, the openhouse model. Um, I'll put it in the chat. I also just wanted to uh let folks know about another Martin Luther King Day event. It's happening on Thursday sponsored by CU. Um it's a a convocation. Um the theme is imagining tomorrow. Afroofuturist visions of community creativity and collective care. Um incredible keynote. I don't know if

[54:02] you all know Dr. Ibram Kendy. Um I had the pleasure of teaching his books in my classes at CU. Um he's an amazing uh anti-racism critical scholar. Uh so he's going to be coming. It's a free event. I think they just ask that you register RSVP. Um so that's Thursday, this Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Mackie Auditorium. Um and then just a side note, the Modus Theater event I believe is 300 p.m. on uh Monday and that always sells out. So, if you want to go to that one, please reserve your spot if you haven't already. And those I mean, I will be going to both of those events. The reminders are such an incredible music group. Holy cow. Yeah, >> that was that was the one I I saw you at a show at the Velvet Elk for them, right? >> What was that? >> Did I Did I see you at a show for the Velvet Elk when they like played with

[55:01] another >> Oh, no. I didn't I don't think I was there. >> Maybe. >> I'm glad you saw them. I couldn't remember if it was I don't remember if I saw the reminders. I remember seeing you at a show at the Velvet Elk and I wasn't sure if like that was the band because I went for a different band, but there there was like some band that was opening but >> Oh, it was Lady and Handmade Moments. >> Handmade moment. Yeah, >> different vibe. Folksy vibe. >> Cool. >> Um the reminders I think played Bands on the Bricks a few years ago. Cool. >> So, they they don't only, you know, make the MLK Day rounds and modus rounds, they're also just an amazing hip-hop uh duo. >> Cool. >> I think I think those are the two updates I'd like to share. Thank you. >> Awesome. Thank you, Emily. >> Any more updates? >> Very good. Um, well, that brings us to I I guess I'll I'll I'll share like a quick update. I'm starting back in school on Wednesday. So, this will be my final semester at CU. So, just like

[56:01] holding some intentions of where like the um bridges to be built um in the university and how like city university bridges. So, just since this is my last semester there, just like holding that. So, just holding that loose intention and sharing that. Um and with that, that comes to the end of our commissioner updates. Um next section is follow-up items. Um, I don't think we have any follow-up items, Elizabeth. >> Um, no, thank you. I think our main followup for staff is just to, um, maybe if it's a conversation with Aaron and Carlos, just talk a little bit more, answer whatever questions you have or provide some thoughts about possible activities, um, things that are on our staff. Uh, work plan for 2026, of which there are several items. um some of which overlap with um your work plan in terms of outcomes. Uh data tracking um

[57:02] regarding claims um and failure to pay wages for the um ordinance and failure to pay wages and also exploring together with our city attorney's office um some opportunities that we may have to be able to strengthen and kind of give some more teeth um to the human rights ordinance. So we have not it's January 12. We have not started that that work yet, but that's also a work plan item. So I think again the followup might just be a starter conversation um with Aaron and Carlos and your roles to frame some of that up and yeah you can decide how to how to take that back um to the February meeting. >> Very cool. Thank you so much for that. So, it sounds like all of our homework by next month is to take a look over that work plan um and to really see what parts of those objectives call to us and any activities. And I think by next month we can all come back with some activities, but it also sounds like

[58:00] Elizabeth and Christian, you might have some like things to bubble up um from the city side that will help shape that. Uh Carlos Yeah, I think you can do that, Elizabeth. Share the work plan out. >> Yes. >> Okay, that brings us to the end of that section. Does anybody have anything more that they want to add before we bring this meeting to a close? >> Uh question. Is this Emily's last meeting or not yet? >> I think we've still got a couple more months with you. >> Oh, I for some Okay, so I'm not kicking you out. I just didn't want to like not take the opportunity now that we had a chance to get to know each other to like

[59:01] not see you again. Okay. Sorry. >> Go quietly. >> My mistake. Okay. >> On the website, I think it says February if I'm not mistaken, but I don't know. Christian was saying he was gonna check into that. I don't know, Elizabeth. Have you heard anything? >> Honestly, um, we did not talk about that today. So, yeah. >> So, sounds like next month could be your last meeting, >> but we we at least have you next month. And hopefully next month we can can all be in person. So, get to be together in that way. Okay. Any last last things? >> Well, thanks Aaron for your first meeting and Carlos for your >> support and assist behind the scenes as always. >> Absolutely. Thank you so much. Yeah, appreciate all of you. >> Great job. >> Good evening everyone. Take care.

[60:02] >> Yes. Yes. Thank you interpreters.