Fort Worth is looking to move the city in a direction of full inclusion and fairness. After more than a year of listening to citizen concerns and suggestions, the city’s Race and Culture Task Force is prepared to release its recommendations to residents.
Monday night, the task force will vote on a final draft and release it to the public at a series of six “open house” meetings.
“When we go back to them we will ask them, 'Did we hear you correctly?' 'Did we get the disparities you wanted us to get?' 'Are these recommendations addressing these disparities as you see it and if not, you tell us what we need to do next,’” said Task Force Co-Chair Bob Ray Sanders.
“We’re going to spend the next month finishing up with our public meetings – these conversations,” Sanders said. “We’ll go back and refine based on what the community tells us and come up with a final set of recommendations and our plan is to present to the city council the first week of December.”
Sanders said some of the recommendations could be seen as controversial.
After the 2020 census, Fort Worth’s growing population will likely call for the creation of two new city council seats.
“Redistricting is very important. When you talk about fairness and disparity,” Sanders said. “Looking at city council – does it represent ethnically what our city looks like? It doesn’t right now and if we add two extra council seats will it?”
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“We are talking about coming up with a possible – and this is going to be controversial – having an independent redistricting committee to draw the lines for redistricting,” Sanders added.
Another major recommendation comes from the criminal justice committee.
“We are talking about some kind of review board for the police department and we are talking about what we call that. Is it ‘Citizen’s Review’ [or] is it ‘Civilian Review?’ Some kind of review,” Sanders said. “We have to decide how we get to that point. We know there will be resistance to that as well.”
Residents will have the opportunity to review the recommendations and provide their comments and feedback at eight Open House meetings.
• Sept. 27, Police Department Sixth Division Headquarters, 8755 N. Riverside Drive
• Oct. 1, Hazel Harvey Peace Center for Neighborhoods, 818 Missouri Ave.
• Oct. 4, Southwest Regional Library, 4001 Library Lane
• Oct. 8, Diamond Hill Community Center, 1701 N.E. 36th St.
• Oct. 9, University Christian Church, 2720 S. University Drive
• Oct. 11, University of Texas at Arlington Research Institute, 7300 Jack Newell Blvd. South
Each meeting will last from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. with a short video about the task force’s work so far. Each of the seven committees will have a table so that residents can learn about the recommendations and ask questions.
A copy of the recommendations will be posted on the onefortworth.org website after Sept. 25.
