Good evening and welcome to the city council meeting. Before Mayor Parker calls the meeting to order, we ask that you please be seated and silence all electronic devices. For those of you who requested to speak, when your name is called, please come forward to the center podium. The countdown clock is displayed on the chamber monitor and will indicate how much time is remaining. The bell will sound when you have 30 seconds left. Thank you for attending. Thank you, Janette. I'll call our meeting to order. And I believe is Council Member Flores going to do her invocation tonight? Is that right? Okay. Council Flores. If you'd like, please stamp the invocation. And we're also going to be joined by Cub Scout Pack number 205, who will do our pledge of allegiance as well this evening. >> Good evening, everyone. Please join me in prayer. Almighty God, where there is differing opinions, let us be respectful. Where there is disagreement, let our tolerance not grow thin. Where there are assembled persons together, let us listen to one another. We ask that you be among us tonight as we work for the better interests of the residents of our beloved city. In your name we pray. Amen. If our Cub Scouts would like to come forward at this time to lead us in our pledge of allegiance. Go ahead to the flag of the United States of America to the republic. It stands >> one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Honor the Texas flag. >> I pledge allegiance to the Texas. One state under God, one indivisible. >> Great job, gentlemen. I appreciate y'all being here. Okay, with that I believe our um first is going to have a presentation by city staff led by assistant city manager Dana Burgdoff. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Dana Bergdoff, assistant city manager and have a presentation. We'll get started here in just a moment. So, I'll review with you federal grant requirements and our proposed small business development program to replace our business equity ordinance. We have changing federal grant requirements that we're facing that are affecting cities across the country. I'll review with you the specific impacts to the city of Fort Worth. These grant requirements do not affect our civil rights office and our ability to support our human relations commission. Uh we'll go through the specific elements of the proposed small business development program and our recommendations to comply with the federal grant requirements and our proposed next steps. As we discussed with you in June, recent US Supreme Court cases, executive orders, and directives from federal agencies prohibit the use of race, color, national origin, sex, religion, etc. as criteria for participation in programs and services. Federal grant recipients, including the city of Fort Worth, are being required to certify that we do not have such programs, even if we're using non-federal funds for the programs. The city of Fort Worth has u several different federal grants. Several of these are over a multitude of years. We wanted to clarify that this this slide does not indicate our annual grant amount. These are grants that cover multiple years. This total of 277 million includes grants over 10 different departments and again over over a number of different years. This includes transportation grants, community development grants, public safety grants and so on. Within this grant amount on the next slide, you'll see the annual grant awards. The annual grants total 40.6 million and are primarily within our neighborhood services department. The annual grants provide services again with community development, public safety, and also support civil rights enforcement, and they fund 120 city employee positions. Coming up next week on your city council agenda, you have an M andC that would authorize an annual action plan for us to receive our FY26 federal HUD funds. This would total about $13.3 million in community development block grant, home, HOPA, and emergency solutions grant dollars that funds programs within our community as well as city employees. This would this funds programs that serve primarily low-income residents, households, and individuals, as well as funding 38 positions, 38 employees within our neighborhood services department. If the resolution on your agenda tonight is not approved, we will withdraw that M andC since we would not be able to certify that we comply with the federal executive orders. We would forego the 13.3 million uh and the funding that it would provide for those programs and for those employees. This is the slide that you saw in the June presentation describing the programs and services that our neighborhood services department provides to our community. We've highlighted for you the HUD funds in particular, CDBG, ESG, HOME, and HOAPA for you. That includes programs such as priority repair, rental rehabilitation, emergency shelter funds, rental assistance, and so on. Here is the map that shows where those dollars are primarily spent. This is our CDBG eligible areas of Fort Worth. Again, primarily low-income areas. We've covered with you before the penalties for non-compliance. So, we are at risk of losing our existing and future federal funds if if we do not suspend our programs that provide a benefit based on race, ethnicity, or gender. Also, the city employees who sign federal grant agreements are subject to individual civil and criminal liability under the False Claims Act. And then the city itself is subject to triple or the language is treble damages, but triple damages based on the federal grant amounts. Again, using our annual grant award of 40.6 million. Uh that could equate to $121.8 million in damages. We again want to point out that these federal grant requirements do not affect our ability to enforce federal civil rights. So we're able to still apply our human relations ordinance enforce the Americans with Disabilities Act, a reasonable accommodations ordinance, the Fair Housing, Fair Employment, and so our Civil Rights Office will continue to provide civil rights enforcement and support the human relations commission. So, as we discussed, we have developed a more robust small business development program, which we'll walk through with you. And as uh we'll continue to provide for procurement, we'll still apply our local preference ordinance. That's a city ordinance that's allowed under state law when purchasing with local funds. and as long as still allowed under state law will continue to utilize historically underutilized businesses as required when purchasing with state funds or city funds greater than $3,000 and again as long as required by the federal department of transportation and EPA will continue to utilize disadvantaged business enterprises. So, on to the proposed small business development program, which would replace the business equity ordinance. Here, we've taken a lot of actions over the last several weeks. I want to commend all the various city departments that have been involved and especially want to thank the three chambers of commerce for their partnership in helping to work quickly to come up with a robust program for you to consider. So, we've met with the the chambers. They've identified stakeholders for us to meet with to help understand what are the challenges that our small businesses face in working with the city and with others in their small business work. We've met with the certification agencies about how we might pivot from MWBE certification to small business certification. Our law department has worked quickly on a small business procurement ordinance as well as to revise our economic incentives policy. And we've also met with a consultant about how we might create a small contractor development program. And we'll walk through each of those. So, I want to point out um that we've got a lot of great work that's already happening with our chambers uh particularly the Hispanic Chamber and the Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce with the contracts that we currently have with them. And while that work is focused on business equity firms, they're uh they've assured us that they're easily able to pivot to working with small businesses to continue to provide a lot of great services that they have. That includes promoting city contracting opportunities, promoting the Devoid Jennings Business Assistance Center, having educational workshops to promote doing business with the city of Fort Worth, assisting businesses with certification, relationship building between prime contractors and subcontractors, supply chain networking and support, matching businesses with upcoming bid opportunities, and bid package assistance. We're also fortunate that the three chambers have an existing memorandum of understanding to work together collaboratively and help with that synergy among the three. There's also of course other existing programs and agencies that are doing a lot of work to support small businesses. Uh agencies at the James Eguin Entrepreneurial Campus, our own economic development department and the small business programs that they have. You may recall the work we did through the uh through the Institute for Justice that helped uh give with give us some critical um uh feedback on the work that we do uh with regard to our online services, our development department and we've created a lot of improvements there on our business website. We also had the creation of CDFI friendly Fort Worth and the capital resources they provide the Beck School of Construction uh workforce um solutions and other partners. So as we met with the small business stakeholders, we received a received a lot of good feedback. Areas that are needed for improvement such as a access improving access to contracting opportunities, improved access to to financial resources and capital, improved educ um resources for education, navigating city systems, support gaps, addressing structural and systemic barriers and potential bias. uh the and then reports of the value of the networks that they that they have in the community, community support for entrepreneurship and then optimism due to Fort Worth's continued growth and change. So for the proposed city ordinance and resolution to support small businesses, we're able under state law to pivot from low bid to best value procurement to utilize small businesses. So, we'll talk through the proposed small business preference for procurement under $100,000, the proposed small business goal for procurements over $100,000, and the small business goal for economic development incentives. So, in order to do that, we need to work with businesses in order to ensure that they're certified as small businesses. And in talking with the certification agencies and talking with the chambers, we're recommending that we use the small business administration definitions to start the hub certifications, the DBE certifications. All of that relies on SBA definitions as well. And that's what the certification agencies are ready to to use in order to get that stood up very quickly. So, we've provided the agencies with the list of businesses that we have within our city purchasing system for firms that are currently only minority or womenowned business enterprise certified within our system in order to encourage them to apply for small business certification as well. And so the agency is able to identify those businesses who are eligible for small business certification based on their gross annual revenue or the number of employees. So with regard to procurement for small business preference, state law allows us to provide that preference on procurements up to $100,000. We're recommending that we provide that preference to small businesses that are located within our city limits. You may recall under our business equity ordinance, our marketplace is defined as the 9count area of North Texas. And so here we would be providing that preference to firms specifically within Fort Worth to benefit Fort Worth businesses that we would assist the small businesses in getting certified and we would provide that 5% preference on their bids to help them qualify as the low bidder. We would then award the contract to the low bidder using their actual bid amount. So, let me walk through a quick example of how that would work. So, here we have three biders. You can see their bids in that second column. We have bidder C, who in the second column is the highest bidder, but because they're small business certified, they're able to receive a 5% preference. So, in the evaluation, you'll see that their evaluation amount is 47,500, which makes them then the the lowest bidder. And so they're then selected as the as the winning bidder. When we do the contract, we then award the amount at $50,000, which was their actual bid amount. So the the city would be paying a little bit more, but we think it's worth it to provide that benefit to the small business and help them grow in Fort Worth. We would recommend that we come back to the city council after a year to provide an evaluation of the fiscal impact, but we think it'll be minimal since we're applying this to procurements that are under $100,000. The next category is procurements over $100,000, which is going to be the bulk of the procurements that we do. When you think about all of the variety of departments that the city has, this is all the goods and services, all of our technology, and then all of our construction, water, sewer, storm water, streets, all of our buildings. And so here, because of the variety of procurements that we would be talking about, we would recommend that we provide the prefal, excuse me, for small businesses located within the five counties where Fort Worth is located. So that would include Tarant, Denton, Johnson, Parker and Wise counties. So we would again assist the small businesses to get certified and we would have a 30% goal to start for small business utilization. And so again, this would be a considered a best value procurement. And so in in the instance if we had a low bidder that didn't meet the 30% goal, we would then go to the next high next lowest bidder that would meet the 30% goal and be able to award the bid to that bidder. Again, if it if a small business was the lowest bidder, they could self-perform the work. But that would be our our recommendation is to start with a 30% goal and we could evaluate that over the coming year to see what uh small businesses are available and we can adjust that goal over time. So lastly, our small business goal for economic development incentives. Uh currently the economic development incentive policy provides that we uh have a 15% goal for MWBE utilization for construction. And so here we're recommending that we provide a small business goal for small businesses located within Fort Worth city limits and that we be able to negotiate that goal based on the economic development incentive. So we've provides a property tax abatement to locate in Fort Worth, they will be required to utilize small businesses for construction andor goods and services to receive a portion of their tax abatement. Under the current policy, the goal only applies to construction. Under this recommendation, we would also be able to establish a goal for goods and services in the instance uh in some cases we've had economic development deals where there was no construction because they've moved into an existing building. So, now I'd like to turn to the element of the program that increases the scope of work for uh our our chambers, our Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce and our Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, as well as the recommendation that we add a contract with the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce. And uh to go over these scopes of work, I'd like to ask each of the executive directors of the chambers to come up in turn and spend a few minutes going over their scopes. And first I'd like to ask Michelle Green Ford to come up and go over go over her scope. So Michelle, thank you. >> Mayor Parker, city manager Chapa, and distinguished council members. I am excited to be here today to share with you the work and the progress that we've made since our last meeting. We were here on June 24th. when the council gave us specific directions to come back with a robust plan and we've been working with the city leaders uh Christina Brooks we've worked with uh members of our chambers we've worked collaborative together and we've worked with certification agencies as well to come up with a plan is specific and it focuses on areas that we have been given and told by our members members for years, things that need to be developed in order to move our small businesses forward. But not just our members, for all small businesses, the plan has been developed in that manner. Uh specifically, if you look at what we're focused on, the first one is one that we heard on the 24th, the impact on bonding and insurance on educational workshops that are needed to help our small businesses become bondable and able to compete for contracts. So what that entails is access to bonding, education on what is needed to be bonded and so and facilitation of those relationships. So that's what we'll be focused on with the first area. The second area has to do with capital readiness and focused on how do we get access to capital. Currently, our chamber focuses on 14 banks that we're in relationship with. Uh we're also in relationship with our CDFIs. And so, we'll leverage those relationships and make and build opportunities for those small businesses to be able to connect with the lending institutions. We already work with those institutions, but the difference is it's strategic in that we will focus specifically with the small business owners who have contracts with the city are trying to acquire those and connect them with the lending institutions that we know are ready to support them. So, we're really excited about the access to capital and the readiness. The third area we want to focus on is workforce solutions. In order for our small businesses to thrive, there's a need for education and training, not just from a technical capabilities, but also soft skills. And so, we will focus on partnering with workforce solutions and other educational partners that will help our small businesses be prepared in every sense of the way. So education and development will be the third piece. The fourth one is really critical and it's timesensitive. You heard us mention certifications. Uh the role that we will play obviously the certification agencies are all on board. They're all in place and they're ready to move but we have several hundred businesses who do not have a small business certification currently. They may have an NWBE certification and there's a need to add certifications. There's a need to move quickly to expedite to have workshops to connect the agencies together. So, we'll be working diligently with those agencies to make sure our small business are in compliance with the city and then they are ready to start bidding immediately. So, that's really key. One last thing I would like to say. This has been a difficult process for all of us, but I want you to know that I am energized by the connections we have with the other chambers. Uh, working with the Fort Worth Chamber and the Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber together and the city leaders, I am confident that we can move forward with a plan that would move this city forward and develop all of our small businesses. Thank you for allowing me to speak to you today. Thank you. >> Thank you, Michelle, for being here. >> Yes. At this time, I'd like to bring up my community partner in small business development, president and CEO of the Hispanic Chamber, Erica Garza. >> Thank you, Michelle. >> Good evening, Mayor Parker, um, city manager J Chapa, um, council, and all the leaders that are present. Throughout this process, we have approached our role as a collaborative stakeholder group. We remain focused on adapting to the current laws while continuing to support the small businesses which are the heart of our community. The structure and clarity of the city's proposed program gives us a more defined framework which enable us to move more intentional, more datadriven and is strategic in our efforts. I also want to recognize the tireless work of our peers at the Fort Worth Metrop Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce and Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, as well as our members, our focus group participations, city staff, and our board of directors. This process has required deep listening, long hours, and a shared commitment to progress. The city of Fort Worth team in particular work diligently alongside to ensure small business remains in the center of the program. The Hispanic Chamber, our scope will number one partner with supply chain and logistics technical assistance on providing to deliver training, mentorship, and hands-on experience in managing small business logistics and inventory oversight. What we plan to do with that is capacity building. We're bringing in experts to help businesses better understand and manage supplier relationship, logistics, and inventory process. Second one, partner with the city of Fort Worth to match qualified small businesses with city contracting opportunities based on NEOK's code opportunity. We see that as opportunity for matchmaking. We're aligning small businesses with city contracting opportunities based on the codes. And third, vendor access. We're helping firms gain access to cooperative vendor systems like Smart Buy, opening up broader opportunities to secure contracts. This work ensures small business are not just aware of opportunities, they're also prepared to pursue and win with them. As a chamber, we remain collaborative partner in this evolving landscape. We're committed to adapting to the legal requirements while staying focused on the heart of our mission, which is supporting small businesses. This program gives us more transparent structure to work from, and we'll use it to help our members navigate, grow, and thrive. Our priority is ensuring these changes lead to real results, not just to the few, but for many who make up the Fort Worth's entrepreneurial agent uh engine. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for the consideration. and I would like to pass it on to my peer Steve Montgomery, CEO of the Fort Worth Chamber. Thank you. >> Note to self, don't take the microphone after Erica and Michelle. Good evening, mayor, uh, council, and members of the city manager's office. Uh, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you tonight. Um, I'm Steve McGomery, president, CEO of the Forward Chamber of Commerce. I'm honor honored to stand alongside my colleagues and peers at the Fort Metropolitan Black Chamber and Fort Hispanic Chamber and offering our services. The Fort Chamber proudly represents a broad cross-section of Fort Worth's business community, including many of the region's largest employers. But it's important to note that the majority of our members are in fact small businesses. These businesses are not just economic engines. They are deeply woven into the fabric of our neighborhoods. They provide jobs, create opportunity, and reflect the entrepreneurial spirit of our city. We recognize that this is a complex and sometimes contentious issue, but we believe there is common ground in wanting Fort Worth to be a place where opportunity is accessible, businesses can grow, and prosperity is shared. With that in mind, I'd like to highlight three areas that the Fort Worth Chamber is uniquely positioned to bring value in advancing this program. First, leveraging our strategic convening power, we bring together stakeholders across industries and across scale, we built trusted networks that allow us to connect small and emerging businesses with larger prime contractors. Through targeted workshops, procurement forms, and curated introductions, we help facilitate mentorships, subcontracting opportunities, and partnerships that might not otherwise form. Second, communications and outreach. We have extensive communication channels and platforms that can amplify city contracting opportunities and business resources. Too often small businesses miss out on these chances due to lack of not due to lack of interest but a lack of awareness. We can help bridge that gap and ensure outreach is timely and impactful. And then third, succession planning and business retention. Economic development studies show that over 80% of a community's economic growth comes from businesses already there. Let me repeat that. 80% of our economic growth, job growth, capital investment come from companies that already call Fort Worth home. That feeds directly into our mission of retention. Often when business owners retire and lack a succession plan, their businesses close. Helping these businesses transition successfully is critical. Without thoughtful succession strategies, we risk losing jobs, investment, and cultural identity. The chamber can deploy tools, tools, and resources that actively support these transitions to preserve our local economic base. In closing, forward chamber stands ready to be a collaborative solutionsoriented partner in this work. Before you tell me to sit down, I'd like to give a quick uh shout out to the staff of the of the city who have worked very hard in this challenging directive on this challenging directive. Uh in particular, I'd like to shout out to Christina Brooks, uh who shouldered a lot of this responsibility for her professionalism, her diligence, and her passion for the success of our community. Thank you all for your time and your service to our community. I'll hand it back over to Dana. Thank you, Steve, Michelle, and Erica. We really appreciate the partnership. That was excellent. So, the other piece to our proposed small business development program is a small contractor development program. And this is actually something that the city of Fort Worth had in place many years ago through its water department. And so we're proposing that we develop an RFP and um hire a consultant to help us perform some national benchmarking since the world has changed over the last 20 years and work with other look at other cities, look at other agencies. But the goal would be to increase the pool of pre-qualified small contractors that could help us with city construction projects in the water department as well as transportation and public works and perhaps other departments as well. This could be everything from bonding capacity assessment, helping them prior to bidding, as well as on-site construction management, helping them even perhaps with an umbrella for um bonding and and insurance um and other services as well. So, we want to get that RFP going this fall. And then also, we want to look at unbundling city contracts. We've done that in fact in with this building with the city hall construction project to see how we might do that to help make contracts more available to small businesses. there can be a cost associated that with that in terms of greater project management costs perhaps greater mobilization costs for construction. So we'll evaluate that and bring that back to city council as a as a policy decision. So uh if the city council approves the resolution uh we've planned a communication campaign with our communications and public engagement uh the work of Sana and her team uh she's partnered with the three chambers to develop one pagers that can be that can be shared. uh she's developed a a web page and uh a social potential social media campaign. She'll work on a video series and and graphic toolkit if this moves forward. So, our recommendation is that the city council vote to approve the resolution and ordinance that are on your agenda to establish the small business development program to replace the business equity ordinance and to suspend the other programs that do not comply with the federal grant requirements. The small business ordinance for procurement would be effective with bids and contracts advertised on or after September 1st. The uh resolution contains the language for the economic development incentives to be effective immediately. And then of course we would continue the work of the civil rights office and the support of the human relations commission. Also for next steps, uh we would um if the if the ordinances resolution and ordinance were approved, we would bring forward on August 26 an M andC to authorize the contract amendments with the Hispanic Chamber and the Metropolitan Black Chamber as well as a new contract with the Fort Worth Chamber Wii which would be effective September 1st. And then over the coming months, we would explore these additional opportunities that we've discussed, the small contractor development program, uh, as well as looking at the definition of small business, so that we can make sure that it's tailored to Fort Worth. And we would by June of next year come back to you with recommendations to change that definition based on the availability in the Fort Worth area. And so with that, I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have before we uh get to speakers. >> Thank you, Dana. questions from council at this time. Council member Rebeck again. There we go. Okay. Um, thank you so much for this, Dana, and thank all of the staff that really worked so hard to put this together. Um, a month ago, we challenged you to do this. Um, and it was no uh no short order for you to get it done. So, thank you. Um, the one question I have and it's pertains to what you just mentioned about the definition of small business and how that might be changing by June of next year. Y >> So, can you tell me um look into the crystal ball and tell me >> Elizabeth, will you adjust your mic and we'll make sure it's not >> Is this better? >> That's better. Yes. >> Okay. Look, if I could ask you to look into the crystal ball and tell me what changes to small a small small business you think would be most appropriate for and I understand that you haven't necessarily um parsed through all of the data yet, but if you could give us an idea of what we're looking at. >> So my our our guesstimate is that the the Small Business Administration definition is obviously national, right? So it applies nationally. um our sense is that the the gross revenue numbers that are used say in the construction field um seem high. So for example, uh it's for certain categories it's 45 million of gross revenue and other categories it's about say 20 million in gross revenue. Other categories it's much smaller, right? It could be 10 million. Um some communities in Texas use a definition of $10 million, right, is the maximum gross revenue for a small business. We've checked in just anecdot an anecdotally, excuse me, with some of the construction firms that we work with, MWBE firms in in the Fort Worth area. Some are above 10 million but have small business certification and MWBE certification. Some are, you know, some are below that number. We're just not sure what the right number is. Uh we think it might be high. We think that SBA number might be high, but we want to do the work with the certification agencies to know really what's available in the city of Fort Worth, in Tarant County, and within that 5count region. But we don't want to pick a number now that's a bit arbitrary until we have the data. So we also want to give firms a chance to get certified right as small business firms and have using the SBA definition is the fastest way for them to get certified and for us to get something stood up so that they can so that we can establish a goal. But it's our sense that as we do as we look at the data it may tell us that we might need to refine it. Now it may be in some industry categories right in goods and services or in some in some industries it may be fine right it may be you know the right the right number but we just want to look at the data we want the opportunity to evaluate it and and come back to you next year Nettles >> thank you mayor I I have a question about the small business I have some questions about um uh the suspension of uh DEI as well uh just talking about the small business and the certification piece. I think that's one of the pieces that I had a strong concern about with making sure that our minority businesses can be certified in order to do work within the city of Fort Worth and also within that 15% on the economic uh incentive space and just looking at we're going to have SBA to do the certification for us or we're going to abide by the SBA certifications. >> Correct. We would use the SBA definition, but we have the North Central Texas Regional Certification Agency that provides that certification in the in North Texas. >> Okay. And looking at the SBA certification for the small businesses for the employees, it's 500 employees or fewer. Is that something that we'll be bound to as it relates to the SBA certification? >> So, so it varies by industry. So for construction it's based on gross revenue >> and for other industries it can be based on employees but it's one or the other. >> So it bas it's based on your nakes code the North American industry blah blah blah. Sorry I don't remember the exact exact um acronym but it's based on your industry. So it's either gross revenue as I understand it or employee count. And so based on your the the code the industry that you're in and we we have to determine that industry before we go to bid, right? And so everybody when they get certified, it's based on their industry. So one particular firm can be certified in a number of different industries based on what they do. So there could be a firm that's certified in a number of different small business industries, whether it's say different elements of construction, could be plumbing, right? Could be electrical, could be flooring, could be drywall, right? There's a number of different industries and there's different standards for different lines of business. So it kind of depends on which industry they're in or what kinds of goods and services they provide. >> Are we not able as forward to determine what our forward uh certification process will look like as it relates to doing business with forward. >> So that's where we already have uh the contracts with the certification agencies in North Texas. And so they have the data on all of the businesses that we already that are already certified as MWBEs. So they already have the data on those firms that we have been serving and been working with. So they already know their gross revenue. They already know their employee counts. So they can almost immediately determine whether they're eligible to be certified as as small business enterprise. So that's the most efficient route. >> I understand what you're saying, but it to me it seems like that there will that's a loophole where some may get left out in this small business certification. I I yeah I think though I think we know who they are. We've we've got the list. We've provided the list to the agencies. We'll be communicating very proactively with them to get them certified. The other thing to remember is not all MWBE firms are small businesses. Some are actually large businesses and so they would you're correct. There would be some large firms that are MWBE that would not qualify as small businesses. So you're correct there. There would be some that are large businesses that would not qualify. >> Okay. But if they're indeed small businesses and they're and they're certified, we would be able to determine the the certification agencies would be able to determine their gross revenue and their number of employees to know if they qualify based on their industry code. Do we have a plan if a small business uh if if a a minority contract or minority group that we already do business with now >> does not make it into that small pool for whatever reason it it may be the number of employees the revenue do we have a mechanism to add them into another certification so we can continue to do business with them or will they just be eliminated at that time >> well it's ongoing so they can be certified any day of the week basically. So, so they can be certified any time and again if they're if they're certified as hub or DBE they're already meeting the SBA certification definition now and so they can be we can help them at any time to get certified. So we, you know, we issue bids weekly and so we can be helping them now even prior to any vote by the city council to be certified and then continu you know continuing on we can be helping them get certified >> but okay but you did say I think I don't know if it was in your presentation was when I met with you that the city of Fort Worth will be working to get its own certification program. Is that off the table now? >> No sir we had not discussed that. What we talked about was coming up with a definition for small business that we think suits Fort Worth based on the small business uh sizes that we have in the area. But that data would still come from the certification agencies. We don't have that data ourselves because that's private. It's private information. >> Okay. >> So that the businesses apply to the certification agencies and provide that information to those certification agencies. We do not have that information. I think Jay wanted to interject here. >> So I think Councilman, what you're referring to, Dana is trying to explain is there would be a Fort Worth specific. We're going to look at it to see if we need to change the sizes under the SBA definition to have a Fort Worth specific >> definition NAKES codes and we would work with the certification agencies to create a new certification that is a Fort Worth small business certification. But the certification happens or is done by the certification agency, >> but that's what it will take if we change the definitions of the sizes. That's what it'll take to get the jobs with with the city of Fort Worth. So, you're you're both right. You're right that there will be a Fort Worth specific. If we decide that the current SBA numbers are too high and the number of employees are too high, as we go through that and collect that data, we'll adjust those numbers and we'll work with the certification agencies to say these are the new numbers in these these different industries that will qualify under our program. And so they'll create a new certification that'll have be called Fort Worth SBE small business enterprise. >> And that's the piece that you said may take six months to a year. >> Exactly. because we got we need to figure out um the marketplace, how many businesses exist and determine whether or not you know too many big firms are getting what areas are are large firms really I mean 45 million is a big number compared to what I think we're target we're trying to hit on the small business side >> so question then would you be able to start though immediately working with certification agencies under the SBA definition and then make adjustments once you go through this process >> that's why We're recommending that it's the only way to start by September 1st. >> Okay. >> Yeah. And yeah, so the certification can start immediately as small business. In terms of collecting the data for the definition, we'd want to wait a little bit because we want to allow businesses time to get certified so that we're looking we're getting the full pool of businesses in the area. >> All right. Thank you. Um, I just want to ask a couple of questions on the um the 46 or 47 million versus the 27 million uh active grants that's on a multi-year and I you did kind of walk through that just briefly, but if you can go back to that >> clarify that a little bit So, so this slide shows the total of all active grants regardless of the year in which they were awarded. So some of them span multiple years. So that that's a total of 277 million active grants. And then this next slide is a subset of that number. And so it's 40.6 million, which is the annual awards that we have for FY25. And that's the 40.6. So that's a a portion of the 277 million. Okay. So, if this resolution was not to pass, we will lose on an annual basis about $40 million worth of revenue. >> So, that's plus plus plus there's the potential that um that some of these other grants separate from that, you're exactly right, could be could be taken back if there was the determination that we were no longer complying with the federal grant requirements. >> Okay. And I think another thing that we kind of discussed earlier is actually suspending the DEI is actually suspending the DEI department as it exists today and the MBE programs and the 15% uh incentive program that you kind of articulated here earlier. >> Correct. >> Okay. Um, and I I know I have some more comments and I just want to take an opportunity as well, a point of privilege to thank all of uh our residents that are here as a packed house to talk about diversity inclusion. Thank you guys for coming out to be a part of uh this very important decision today. >> Other questions from council members or Dana or for staff? Council member Hall. Dan, I want to um also uh thank you for the the time and effort and also thank our our chamber partners and the small business um participants who uh helped inform uh this presentation and development of this program. I do have just a few questions. Um what on average is the cost to become an SP or to endeavor on that certification? So, uh, staff can correct me, but my understanding is that, uh, it varies by, uh, by agency, but it's, I believe, around $200 to $400 for the cost to apply for certification. >> Okay. Thank you. And what is the anticipated time frame to become certified? >> Uh, my understanding is that that can happen fairly quickly. >> Do we >> fairly quickly within within a a few days? Yeah, it can be done in a few days. Okay. Um, and then what what is uh the city's initial financial investment into this program? What what are we investing in this program? >> So, the recommendation for the FY26 budget, I believe, is just a little over $1 million. And that's inclusive of the proposed contracts for the ch the three chambers of commerce, as well as dollars for the proposed small contractor development program. Um and I believe there may be some additional dollars um in case is that for also maybe for this the certification >> work with the certification agencies >> work with the certification agencies in in order to have the modified um the modified contract >> and do we feel or have we gotten opinions as to do we feel that that is like enough funding to help support the I don't know for in the case of the black chamber who's helping with certification is that enough money for the the manpower that they need the bandwidth that they need in order to ensure that the hundreds is basically they're doing certification for all three chamber members. Correct. They're just they're they're their their portion of this project would be the certification. Am I understanding that correctly? >> That's that's one of the areas they're going to focus on. But in fact, our current contract with both chambers, the Hispanic Chamber and the Metropolitan Black Chamber includes assisting small businesses with certification. So that's actually part of both the Hispanic Chamber and the Metropolitan Black Chamber that they assist small businesses or in this case in their current contracts, business equity firms with certification. And so we would expect all the chambers really to help folks get certified because it's such an important part of getting of of switching from business equity to small business. Um, and so yes, the the the contracts that we're proposing for action in in late August for the Hispanic Chamber and the Black Chamber would be roughly a 50% increase to their current contracts. And so again, as we work with them uh to to um increase the that that work and increase that scope as they uh as they work on those programs over this coming year, if they determine that it's insufficient in some way, we can assist. But obviously our our city purchasing department um as well as the work that we've done to date to give the databases to the agencies will all be working hand inand on that certification effort. Um were the chambers uh permitted in this contract or this allocation that they received? Were they able to inform the decision-making process? Meaning were they able to tell you how much money they felt they needed in order to do this? Yes, they they came up with some thoughts on on the levels of scope of effort that they that they could provide in terms of different ideas that they had and then as they met together and we tried to identify what would be reasonable in terms of our budget as well as the existing agreements that they had and what would be complimementaryary among the three of them in terms of the services. Um then that's how we we came to the recommendation that we had for you today. Okay. >> Okay. Um, and so they each they they were each allocated the same amount. >> No, the the Hispanic chamber and the black chamber have a higher dollar amount. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you. And um my last question is regarding um just evaluation I guess. Have you all established what will be the cycle of evaluation for this program? Like what will be I guess just basically was plainly what I stated cycle of evaluation. How will we know that this is working? How long will we be waiting to know if it's working? Um do we have benchmarks along the way? Have we already established what that cycle looks like? >> Certainly. So for the um for the contracts with the chambers, they're required to submit quarterly metrics. And then for the uh small contractor development program, that'll need to be negotiated when we after we issue the RFP determine that scope of work and work with that consultant. that'll still needs to be determined and then as we um work on the if the small if the ordinance is is adopted for the small business procurement ordinance uh then we would come back to you um likely after one year so you could see that performance and we would show you the fiscal impact of that but um my sense is actually I apologize it might be less than one year because we'll be coming back to you in June with the small business definition so my expectation is council will want to see the full uh the full layout of everything that's that's occurred what's the performance performance of the procurement ordinance, what's the performance of the chambers, and what's the performance uh what's the status anyway of the small contractor development program? >> Okay. So, I I guess now I just have a comment with regards to um if this is to pass um I think the evaluation piece is going to be a really key piece on this and um knowing exactly um what success looks like I think is going to be important. And so I think rather than, and this is not to push back at you, just to kind of anecdotally >> monitor it, if you will, but to actually know what we want that to look like and so that if we need to pivot sooner >> than one year in order to be impactful um or intervene, I think that that's important. And so I challenge staff to create a robust cycle of evaluation should this pass. Um so that we know that we can be responsive and proactive as best as we can. >> Yeah, I I agree. And and we have um quarterly what we call Fort Worth stat meetings with our departments. And so with our finance purchasing and then also with economic development, we'll be able to see those measures and be able to see if are we meeting the 30% goal for example on small business. Are we are we meeting the the goals, you know, on on the 5% preference? What are we seeing in terms of small business utilization? So I think that's a great idea >> and I and and not just on the the merit of the program as it is but how it compares to what we are potentially pivoting from is also should be a level of evaluation there as well. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for Nettles. >> Uh yes when uh we was discussing this uh there were two things that that I specifically asked for. one was that we have a developed small business plan and or at least a workable plan to start with and you guys have provided a portion of that today. The second thing I asked for was as it relates to the dollars, the federal dollars such as the 40 million, is the city in any position to absorb the $40 million federal grant that we receive annually through our budget process. And I wanted to see it articulated and maybe Jay can answer this question articulated if that's possible. If that means raising the tax rate two cents, that means putting such as I believe in that that folder you have there the police 2 million into the CCBD um CCPD diversity inclusion would be into a different department which will be funded uh through our uh general funds environment services which was for position at $1 million. I have I don't know if you have that slide or if you if you guys prepare that, but I don't I don't see that because I want to make sure that if I'm going to vote to dismount or suspend diversity inclusion because of this uh executive order, is there a potential way for forward to move without receiving federal grants? >> I can answer. I mean, I guess the the simplest way to answer is so if we were going to add $40 million to the budget, we we'd have to cut out $40 million of existing programs if we weren't going to change the tax rate. Or we would need to raise the tax rate about four cents, a little bit over four cents to get to $40 million in order to to be able to to do it. Every every penny on the on the tax rate is about I think it's 10.5. Is that correct, Christian? It's 11 now this year, this coming year. So, a little under 4 cents would get us to the 40 million. So, the tax rate would need to be uh we need to go up by 4 cents in order to cover the $40 million. So, it can be done. Um, it's a question of of either removing 40 removing things out of the budget in order to put these items in and or raising the tax rate to cover it >> for the city. How many years have we ended with a surplus of money left over? >> No. Nobody's Well, maybe you can give me that later. I I know that um at least I've been on council each year we have ended with a certain amount of surplus where we there's an a fund balance that the city manager has to can put money in other areas because we had some money left over >> it is I don't know >> we do have a fund balance that is basically a rainy day fund thing the problem is the $40 million is a recurring annual ex cost. So it wouldn't just be taking $40 million out of the fund balance. It would be $40 million out of the fund balance balance and then you'd need to still adjust the tax rate in order to catch it the next year. So it's not just a one time 40 million. It's 40 million annually. So it compounds. So going to the fund balance only helps you you know one year. it doesn't re necessarily, you know, put these programs out into the future. You'd have to address it with ongoing revenues, >> right? And I actually think that really makes sense. And I think that what we need to do or what we can do is be creative. Um, you you have your fund balance, you have um the $10 million that we did the settlement suit with uh former chief, you have other balances of money that we have in the city of Fort Worth. I'm going to submit to this council today and those who are listening that there is a way. We may have to go year by year to make it happen, but sometimes you got to do that in order to keep the standards of what we believe here in Fort Worth. So to me, so to me the real question is what are we choosing to stand for? And so I'll have more comments later, but thank you for that. >> Council member Peoples. >> So Dana, I want to thank you and Jay the city manager for sitting down with me and walking through this proposal. Uh but I want to visit the chambers, okay? and the budget that we had given to the chambers because we've asked both the Metropolitan Black Chamber and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to take on additional duties and I know we talked about the amount you said it was a 50% increase over what they were getting but how far off is that from what they realistically think they need to run the proposal to run those functions. I want to make sure that should this pass today that they have the dollars they need and they don't have I know you said if they came back to us and they didn't have the money then we'd look at it again but I want to be sure that in the very beginning that both of these chambers have the dollars they need to operate and be successful. Yeah, I I understand. And the the vote on the contracts would be August 26th, so we can go back to them and find out if there's a concern that they have. We I hadn't heard that before. Now, >> is what they got close to what they submitted? >> I hadn't seen the the details of the proposals. I'll check in with staff. >> All right. Any other questions for Dana from council? Thank you, Dana. We appreciate you very much. >> Thank you. >> Okay, council, we're going to launch into public comment. Um, we do have 70 speakers. Um, so what I what might ask I don't see any kiddos. If there are speakers with any small children or young children with them, I just ask you talk to city secretary's office and I'll move you up. Otherwise, I'm just going to call in order of that was handed by the city secretary's office and go through the process that way. Our first speaker is Mindy Tacket followed by EJ Kerrion. Good evening. Thank you, Mayor Parker. You and I are different, but we share some things in common. We're both white women who grew up in small towns just west of here. I grew up on my parents dairy farm in Toller and went to school in Granberry, where my mom was a teacher. My grandparents lived in Haiko and my uncle owned the case farm equipment business at 3-way. Growing up in Hood County, I was keenly aware of the racism and bigotry woven into the fabric of that community. It was full of kind people so long as you looked, believed, and acted like they did. As an adult, I've tried to name that for what it was, call it out when I see it, and be better than what I was surrounded by growing up. Fort Worth and cities across America are facing the crisis we're in now because people in the party you've aligned with and um sorry, and wealthy donors who have supported your campaigns, elevated a fascist to the presidency. Again, that's not hyperbole. It's reality. I recently reread The Mind of Maddie Parker, a 2021 article in Fort Worth magazine. It talked about the tensions between the city and black and brown communities and how members of the community were demanding accountability accountability, especially after the murder of Atiana Jefferson. At that time, you were quoted calling those concerns fringe issues. Now, here we are debating whether our city should comply with a racist executive order designed to erase diversity, equity, and inclusion. These aren't fringe issues. They only seem fringe if your world is white- centered. This moment isn't the result of what black and brown communities have done. It's the result of deliberate decisions by white people. White women in particular had the power to vote differently and stop this man from regaining the presidency, but most didn't. Now you have an another opportunity to do something. Mayor Parker, this vote shines light on your real values. You said you want to quote strengthen alliances, build acceptance, and advance equal rights and access to opportunity for all residents. You've made speeches and proclamations saying diversity matters, but your actions and alliances say otherwise. It will cost us all something to push back. It will cost the city to stand its ground. But if we mean what we say about justice, inclusion, and who we want to be, we have no choice but to resist. We cannot let a racist fascist administration bully this city into harming the very communities who are here tonight asking this council to stand with them. Thank you. [Applause] followed by Kin Shimato. I live in District 11. Today, I'm speaking as a concerned minority business owner watching this council prepare to throw black, brown, and women entrepreneurs under the bus to kiss the ring and collect Trump's DEI money. And let's be clear, Trump DEI stands for daddy earned it. And right now, the only people we value in this city is legacy trust fund babies born to generational wealth. There are thousands of talented marginalized entrepreneurs in the city with over 9,100 letters sent to you looking to catch a break. This moves tells them Fort Worth won't fight for you. Also, isn't a black chamber, Hispanic chamber, technically already DEI by the name, so what are we actually hiding? Their speeches sounded like things they already do. Nothing new was really shared. They're just kissing the rings the way some of you plan to do today. Let's be honest, this isn't about small business. So, stop the masquerade. This problem you're in isn't because of marginalized communities. Yet, we'll continue to take the brunt of your consequences. This is what happens after 30 years of Republican rule, obsessed with shrinking government and starving it of the tools to serve its people. The last time Fort Worth raises taxes, was in 1995. Since then, we've doubled our population, and now we're crying broke. We're the 11th largest city in America, yet we don't even crack the top 25 city budgets in America. How can we ever compete as a worldclass city with this imbalance? And some of you in this room hear that statistic and smile proud of pro- big business anti-comm community rhetoric. We build airports for billionaires and then honor city managers who fly on their private jets while all workingclass families can't even get a bus home. Here's a relevant data point. According to Forbes magazine, Ross Perau Jr. has has added $2.6 $2.6 6 billion to his net worth since 2020. This means one man added the city budget to his bank account. Carlos Flores, June 24th, you said this should be about people, not politics. In a different time, you might be right, but today is about power. While we were on recess, Trump pushed to racially gerrymander five congressional seats in Texas, which is part of the same playbook. Eliminate DEI, silence black and brown voters, and make sure people like me and you can't get a seat at the table unless we become Manny Ramirez. We either flex our parlor or get run over. Stop fighting for crumbs when it's time to remodel the kitchen. The mayor wants you to feel like this is the end of the world, but it's the end of hers. Mayor Parker has already enabled this extremism. The people gave you a chance. You created a you could have created a new narrative for your party, but instead you allowed Tim O'Hare, Governor Abbott, and Donald Trump to own Fort Worth. Realize their hunger to eliminate DEI. >> Our next speaker is Ken Shimato, followed by Ernesto [Applause] Evening, Mayor Parker, council members. Since the last time this body met in June, a lot has changed in our country, which changes also the context in which this discussion takes place. I would like to think that my city would not bend a knee to a regime that has dismantled and defunded every federal agency and program that benefits people. has put masked thugs on the street to kidnap people and ship them off to concentration camps or foreign countries and has demanded the racist germandering of Texas congressional district which which is going on as we speak. But it appears that y'all are still determined to go along to get along. And in that context, I can only say I hope city manager Chapa, your due diligence in preparing the presentation that we just saw included a review of all the federal grants that you are hoping to save by sacrificing the work of the race and culture task force and the commitments you made to this city in 2018. And I hope in your due diligence you ensured that those grants are not funded by appropriations that will go away under the air quotes big beautiful bill anyway regardless of how this body votes. Thank you. >> Our next speaker is Arnost Moran followed by Reed Bills. I want to acknowledge that we are on land seated and shared by the Kikapoo, Jumanus, Takani, Witchaw, and Comanche nations. These comments aren't addressed to the five who call themselves Republicans. If the past eight years didn't disavow you of that label, then you've lost all decency and humanity. You should be running as independents because the GOP no longer has values of its own. It is beholden to the inconsistent whims and will of one individual which is why this meeting is even taking place. So I'm only speaking to the six who don't belong to a fascist party. I'm done and you should be too with using their terminology with letting the other side determine the rules of engagement. It's not DEI that make labeling it that makes it easy to oppose. Say the words diversity, equity, and inclusion. Dr. Hall, what part of diversity are you opposed to? Would you like the city to only do business with firms owned by whites? Mr. Flores and Miss Martinez, what part of equity don't you like? Do you not agree that the north side and poly communities deserve an equal chance at city employment? Miss Beck, is inclusion a bridge too far for you? Should we go back to the days when every city panel and committee was all male? This is the 10th largest city in the nation. And like all the ones larger than it, it is incredibly diverse, more than 100 different languages are spoken within our city limits. So it's time our representation reflects that. And I have an idea. Since mid deca mid decade redistricting seems to be all the rage, I'm calling on you six to open the redistricting process and redraw our city council seats. Because if a slight majority is enough for Tim O'Hare or Greg Abbott to ram through a jerrymander that solidifies their power just as it was being challenged and they risk losing the majority, then this slight majority should do the same. They've shown they'll no longer play by the rules. So, let's play by their new ones. They claim the process is necessary to properly reflect the electorate. Then, let's make sure that that that's the case on this city council, too. After all, the results show that in this county, we voted for Colin Alred over Ted Cruz. We voted for Joe Biden over Donald Trump. You can go so far back as to see that we voted for Betto OORC over Ted Cruz. So, let's not waste another day. Start the redistricting process now so we can seat a new council in 2027. I say peace be to you if you're willing to fight for it. >> Our next speaker is Reed Bills, followed by Charles Bills. Tonight you will be voting to suspend all DEI activities as a result of a threat from the veter government to withhold 40.6 million in annual grants. Much has been said about the effect of this action on small businesses, but the resolution will also suspend the application and enforcement of the Department of Diversity and Inclusion. The effects of this action are widespread, especially in our minority communities. The department supports the human relations commission and serves as a watchdog for assuring employees and residents of Fort Worth are treated equally in housing, jobs, and public accommodations. Far more people will suffer from closing the DNI office than will be harmed by the elimination of minority and William womenowned business protections. Fort Worth has been honored in the past for its progressive steps toward assuring diversity. Now is not the time to remove those priorities at the command of a regressive power play. Doing so will only invite more demands that will whittle away our humanity. I urge you to stand up for your constituents who benefit from protection provided by DEI policies and vote no on the proposed resolution. It's the Fort Worth way and the right thing to do. >> Our next speaker is Charles Bills. Charles will be followed by John Gardner. So the federal government expects you to abandon diversity, equity, and inclusion. What they also ex expects is to enact a policy of homogenity, inequity, and exclusion. If you pass this resolution, any contracts awarded to any minorityowned businesses, any hires of any minority by the city will be considered a violation of this new policy and they will attempt to withhold this money. Anyway, thank you. >> Our next speaker is John Gardner, followed by Lori Kinler. Is John here? Lori Kinler. Is Lori here? Okay. Lori will be followed by Katherine Godby. Good evening, members of the council and Mayor Parker. I'm a native Texan and have called Fort Worth home for 25 years. I live in District 11. As a small business owner, I want to express my deep concern about the decision to suspend diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in our city. I know from personal experience how challenging it is to access opportunities that others in more established networks often take for granted. DEI is not about special treatment. It's about ensuring that every entrepreneur, regardless of background, has a fair chance to grow their business, create jobs, and contribute to Fort Worth's future. Suspending these efforts doesn't just pause a program. It closes doors for people who are working hard to build something meaningful in our communities. Fort Worth's economy is stronger when everyone gets a fair shot. I urge you to re reconsider this decision and recommmit to policies that reflect the values of inclusion, equity, and opportunity for all. Thank you for your time and for your service to our city. Our next speaker is Katherine Godby. Miss Godby will follow by Whitney Wood or >> I um I was co-ound I'm co-founder of the Justice Network of Tarant County and before I retired I served in several local congregations as pastor when Jquavian Sllayton and Atatiana Jefferson were killed by Fort Worth police and soon after when Ahmad Arbory, Briana Taylor and George Floyd were murdered. I was moved to do a deep dive in what it really means that I'm white. Part of what I've learned is that white Americans cannot escape the racist history of this country. We carry it in our bones. We benefit from it in countless ways. We swim in a sea of white supremacy that's invisible to so many white people. If you vote to do away with DEI, I can only conclude that you're blind to this reality. I believe that the spirit of God is calling all of us to find the courage to open our eyes. Yes, it's painful to read about the fundamental role that racism has played in our history and then of course once you do to suddenly see it absolutely everywhere still today. But you have chosen to become leaders of this city. Hopefully, you want to lead with moral integrity and with your eyes wide open. Racism is a scourge for people of color, of course, but it's also a white person's problem for so many reasons. It hollows us out. It eats away at our humanity. And racism distorts our vision. We have to intervene and DEI programs are an important part of that intervention. All of us benefit from them. We long for leaders that we can respect, leaders with integrity and courage. So don't fall for the national leadership trying to bully you into their white supremacist policies. I urge you to stand up to it. Do the right thing. Thank you. Our next speaker is Whitney Wood Wararez. Whitney will be followed by Kyle Powell. Hi, Mayor Parker, city manager Chapa, esteemed city council. Thank you for having me here today. My name is Whitney. I'm a proud Fort Worth resident and a local realtor. I'm here today to speak in strong support of the city's DEI initiatives from the perspective of someone who works daily to help people access housing. As a real estate professional, I see firsthand how critical diversity, equity, and inclusion are to the dream of home ownership. Fair housing is the foundation of a just and thriving city. And DEI efforts help break down barriers that have historically kept people from owning homes, building wealth, and feeling like they truly belong in our neighborhoods. Federal Fair housing laws state housing should be accessible to all. Fort Worth's diversity and inclusion department plays a critical role in ensuring our cities our city remains in compliance with federal fair housing laws. This is the exact department that investigates discrimination complaints, educates housing providers and residents about their rights, and works actively to remove systemic barriers that have historically excluded entire communities from home ownership. When we support DEI in Fort Worth, we are saying that we believe everyone deserves a fair shot at putting down roots in our city. Let's be clear, housing discrimination is not just a thing of the past. It still happens. I've seen the gaps. I've heard the stories. I've even unfortunately met some of the local realtors who lead with discrimination. The diversity and inclusion department is what helps us not only respond to those challenges, but proactively prevent them. This work is about protecting the dignity of our residents. As Fort Worth continues to grow rapidly, it is more important than ever that we lead with intention and by example. When we celebrate diversity, we create stronger neighborhoods, a stronger economy, and a more connected, vibrant community. So, I urge you, please continue to fund and support the DEI initiatives in Fort Worth and ensure our city grows in a way that reflects the values we claim to hold. This is not political. This is human and this matters. Thank you. Our next speaker is Kyle Powell. Mr. Powell will be followed by Bob Willoughby. >> Good evening, Mayor and uh members of the council. Uh my name is Reverend Kyle Powell. I'm a minister here at a church in Fort Worth and uh I live in District 9. Um, as someone who is committed to living and loving in the way that Jesus did, I couldn't sit by while my city tries to act in a way that is contrary to Christ. Jesus walked with the marginalized. He didn't take away their opportunities. He touched the untouchables and fed the hungry. He healed the sick and made room at the table where people would try and take people away. Jesus didn't get rid of ways to create new opportunities that welcome, include, and lift people up. In fact, he disrupted power structures, broke laws, and met members of the community where the need was greatest. The type of work that Jesus calls his followers to isn't a life of isn't just a life of compassion. It's justice being lived out. And if you happen to know the story of Jesus, it famously comes with a steep price tag. Throughout the Christian scriptures, there are hundreds of calls for justice and mercy to be one of the few guiding principles of our faith. Jesus calls his followers to care for the poor, to welcome the stranger, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. In Matthew 25, Jesus reminds us that whatever we do for the least of these, we do for Christ. Diversity, equity, and inclusion aren't political talking points, but are a true reflection of Christ's love for all people. In the creation accounts found in Genesis, we are witness to the birth of the full breadth of humanity. Meaning that all people are made in the image of God. This means that regardless or every person regardless of race, background, circumstance has inherent dignity and worth the same as you and me. Every one of us is an individual who deserves advocacy, community, and the same opportunities as our neighbor. Throughout history, we have seen how the governments around the world have tried to twist religion to uphold systems of power and exclude those who are different. So I ask you, when Jesus quot is quoted in Mark 8 with saying, "What would it profit a man to gain the world and lose their soul? I ask you a similar question today. What is 46 million to you if you lose the trust of your city, your constituents, and your neighbor to pacify a tyrant. Faith rooted in justice doesn't bow to fear or favoritism. Faith rooted in love doesn't bend the knee to hate. The faith of Jesus and his followers stood up to institutions, authority, and rulers of the land. And today, I ask you to do the right thing, to vote in a way that is not antichrist. Our next speaker is Bob Willoughby. Mr. Willoughby will be followed by Al Czecha. I might be a loner here. Um, I want you to know something about this program we have going on. Does anybody know anything about the structure? You know that the director gets 200,000 a year. You know the um Kim Paxton, the state attorney doesn't get 200,000 a year. Okay? These programs might be good, but they got to be managed right. If they're not managed right, they're worthless. Don't you understand that? These people up here don't care. They don't have no respect for anybody in here. They don't care. Because you know why they don't care? I'll show you right now what's more important than this. This was supposed to be a public comment meeting tonight. Mayor Parker kicked us off the council meeting. We're the only city that doesn't have public comment. Everybody else talked to here all night long about everything they wanted to. So, I want to talk. This meeting is overriding ours. That shows you have no respect for the public. Not at all. >> Bob, if you could just keep it. >> I'm going to talk about the diversity. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I will. She does me. She won't ask anybody else, but she will me. Okay. First thing, she makes over 200,000. I like the girl in charge of the uh director. She's very nice, very honest, but we have a lot of programs in the city that needs to be demolished. They need to be nominating before you got put in here. How can you be leadership? You don't know what's going on. Deborah Peoples's never been to a bond meeting budget meeting. She doesn't know what's going on. She's not leadership. You're not leadership. You're a disgrace. You don't answer questions. You don't manage our money, right? The mayor, the manager there says, "We're in problems with our money because of property tax being low. We're going to have to crunch the budget, right?" Well, how about the $5 million you gave the post journal? Maybe if you wouldn't waste our freaking money, we wouldn't have these problems. But you're not to be trusted. It's not this. Oh, I'll get back on this. I got a beautiful one here. How about the Chamber of Commerce? I feel like a minority. I'm being prejudiced against because there's no white chamber of commerce. There's a black, Hispanic. I think there ought to be an Asian and a white. I'll tell you something better. Why don't we do this? Why don't we do a northeast southwest chambers of commerce and get rid of labeling so people can see everybody as one and not by cutter or race. How's that? I think northeast, south, and west be a hell of a lot better and see things. If we stop labeling things, maybe we'll start get rid of some of this racist. But long as you keep labeling it, you're going to keep fanning it. Okay? I believe that. So make them north, east, west, and south. And there's white people, too, that have low businesses that that needs help. Not just Hispanic and that no more. It's not that way no more. It's equal now. The only problem we have as presidents wrong now is y'all. You're the only problem. You don't take questions. You don't answer. You attack me from up here and run off. And Mayor Parker, you are a two-faced liar. And there's nothing you can say about that. It's on the side of my car. And it's fact, not sarcasm. It's not slander. It's 100% fact. and you're not fit to be a mayor if you're a two-faced liar. >> Our next speaker is Al Czecha, followed by uh Nadia Cardinius. >> Hi, I'm Al Czecha. I'm a longtime uh teacher here in Fort Worth. I live in Riverside. I'm going to disagree with the gentleman who spoke before me on a couple of points. Um wow. Uh I I'd like to start by saying you you know when I'm choosing candidates to vote for two qualities that I'm looking for among others or a moral compass and a backbone. And the thing is I I really do believe that y'all have in fact I know some of you personally have a moral compass. What I need you to show right now is a backbone. Um, [Applause] I know that when you chose to serve in public office and and honestly, bless you for for for putting up with that. Um, and and and to be willing to to listen to all of us, but when you came into public office and you're faced with decisions like these where it feels as though the only two choices are to compromise your ideals and our ideals as a city in in order to preserve funding. The fact is every single law firm, university, private company that has bowed into this kind of bullying, they both lost their autonomy and the ideal and also open the to the door to more of it. You know, they they still paid the price. And if that's the case, we may as well fight back and keep our ideals and keep our morals. And I have to say as a teacher I often frame things in my mind of how would I explain this to kids? How do I explain this to kids? And in this instance, I get it. Those are numbers that you're showing up there. But I have to ask myself like if the kid was asking me, Miss Czecha, how come some of these things are sacrosanked and they are non-negotiable? And how come other things are for sale? Right? And evidently in this town we have said that things like the arts, those are optional. And I would like for us in this moment to say no, no, no. Right here, these things are not optional. To to live in a city where we include people, where we are for fairness, where we are for where you are representing not just some of us but all of us. I I think that this is the moment I'm imploring you. Show us the backbone that I know that you're capable of. Mark the line in the sand and say this is non-negotiable. Um that's it. Thank you. Thank you very much. >> Our next speaker is Nadia Cardinus followed by Chris Wood. >> Hi, good evening. My name is Nidia Cardinas and I'm a resident of district 3. Um, council member Larsdorf, uh, at the June meeting you said we don't need ordinances to do the right thing. My question is, what exactly is the right thing? If the right thing equals believing people of color and women are just as as talented and capable to lead companies as white males, then the data is clear. Most people and institutions are not doing the right thing. If we look at venture capital, of the $289 billion invested globally in 2024, only 2.3% went to female only founding teams, 83.6% went to male only teams, the vast majority led by white men. And when we factor in race, it's even more stark. Black women received less than half a percent of all venture capital funding. I'm not even here to argue how much of the gap is due to intentional racism or sexism. Let's pretend for a moment that none of it is intentional. Even then, the conclusion is clear. Without specific systems and policies in place, equity doesn't just happen. Unless, of course, what you're suggesting is that white men are 140 times more capable of running companies than black women. Is that what you believe, council member? I'd love to hear what council members peoples in hall would have to say about that. I've spent most of my career working to close this gap, working on initiatives like the Goldman Sachs 10,000 small businesses program, designing mentorship programs for black and latino tech founders across the country. I even worked at a startup that used collective intelligence and machine learning to try to reduce the bias in venture capital. Why? Because the market doesn't self-correct for equity. You're framing this as a vote to preserve the possibility of $277 million over what is an unclear number of years. But really, this is a vote about two things. Whether you believe the federal government should hold hostage critical funds from our community, and whether you believe equity and merit can coexist. In choosing to dismantle DEI and comply, you are siding with an administration using already allocated funding as leverage to force communities to abandon equity. Mayor Parker, nothing you've said or done publicly has convinced me you've pushed your staff to explore other legal or strategic options. So, my ask is this. Stand up for equity. Pursue legal action against this overreach. Council members Flores and Martinez, as representatives of the Latino community, if you vote to comply, then at minimum, you must also push for legal action. That is the only path forward that shows us you are serious about creating an equitable Fort Worth for all. Thank you. Our next speaker is Chris Wood followed by Karen Johnson. This small business development program is in response to President Trump's executive order banning all federal programs fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion, and threat to cut off federal assistance to local governments that don't comply. I feel that Trump's order was a bully move. This response from the city of Fort Worth is basically a work workaround. As a citizen of Fort Worth, this order by Trump was also a bully move against me. I chose a direct response. I emailed someone within the executive administration. I told them this bully move, it's made me feel insecure, puts me on guard, and it makes me wonder what's going to happen next. It has left me feeling unaccepted, isolated, and angry. I said instead of using such tactics there should be focus on thorough planning active engagement to successfully implement any change. There should be clear objectives development of a comprehensive plan. There needs to be communication of vision rationale for change. Concerns should be addressed and progress monitored. Evaluating the results, gathering feedback, making adjustments as needed would ensure that any change is sustainable. My email was but a small gesture, but to anyone who wants to bully the city of Fort Worth again, I say to you, I have not yet begun to fight. >> Our next speaker is Karen Johnson, followed by Jeremy Pope. Good evening. Thank you all. Just because the current political climate tells you something is wrong does not make it so. Politics change with the wind. Importantly, we learn from the past so that we do not repeat it. Py versus Ferguson supported separate but equal and took a hold of our nation for six decades. But eventually, Brown versus the board of education remedied the egregious decision of the past. During that time, Jim Crow laws and redlinining still evident today entrenched us in blatant discrimination against all people of color. And if you don't think that redlinining still has its impact, ask yourself if you know where the people of our community live. We know the people who live in Southwest Fort Worth. We know who lives in Southeast Fort Worth. And we know who lives on the north side. Not by accident, but by design. And it still exists that way today. But we still have a long way to go to overcome our history. As Maya Angelou said, "When you know better, do better." Our policies for the city of Fort Worth uphold diversity, equity, and inclusion because we learn to do better and acknowledge that every qualified business deserves a seat at the table. But without those policies, we go back in time where only white people receive the benefit of the doubt regarding their qualifications. And frankly, we are the 11th largest city in this country. We don't need to go backwards when we can lead Fort Worth and the nation into the future. We don't do that by giving into the extortion that the federal government has brought to this body. It is a power play by the federal government telling the city of Fort Worth to only spend the money on their particular terms. It is federal overreach on steroids. The question now is can we afford our values. We are in a good path of valuing valuing our very diverse city. We've been for a long time and we don't need to turn our backs on that path now. Supreme Court Associate Justice Potter stated, "Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do. You know what our values are, what the right thing to do is, do that. Thank you for your time." Our next speaker is Jeremy Pope. Mr. Pope will be followed by Emory Callaway. My name is Reverend Jeremy Pope. I am a healthc care chaplain here in Fort Worth and I'm very proudly represented by Miss Deborah Peoples. Um I'm here to speak today against suspending the city's DEI programs. During one of the last council meetings, council member Lowdorf ruffled my feathers a little bit when he said that he didn't see 80 old white men running the city. Therefore, he saw no reason for DEI. I have two things about that. First, Council Member Lowdorf, not really worried about the white men that I see in C at council meetings. I am worried about the ones you have speaking at campaign events. However, men like Nate Scatsline, who is part of the Mercy Culture Christian Nationalist movement that is helping to fund your work. I don't want white Christian nationalist bigots helping to direct the leaders of my city. Second, that statement also shows me that you have evidently forgotten a very important important point here. This issue isn't about you and your friends on this dis. This is about the people of this city, the ones you were elected to serve and represent. We have a democratic majority on the council. The people who elected you demand that you use the power we have given you. Is this an easy decision? I don't believe that anyone in this room would argue that it is. It is how high time, however, that we fight back against this regime that is determined to run our city from DC. Stand up and fight back. Will it be difficult? Yes. Will it be painful? Absolutely. Doing the right thing often is. I find find it sad yet not surprising that the most marginalized people are the ones who get screwed by white folks budget issues. You were elected to do hard things. So why don't you do them? As for you, Mayor Parker, I think it is in poor form that you're going to vote to suspend DEI after you stood in front of my community, the LGBT community, several weeks ago and read your proclamation about how important diversity is to you and this city. Save your stump speeches, please, because it's getting a little embarrassing. I urge you I urge each of you to vote to hold the line and fight back against Donald Trump and the outrageous Christian nationalist attempt at a power grab. Let's get creative. Let's find creative ways to replace these federal monies and fight back. The people are with you and we are itching for someone who we've elected to represent us to actually fight against this ongoing o overreach. If you won't, we will in the next election find people with a backbone who will. Whether you believe in DEI or not, at least have the backbone to hold on to the right to self-governance at the city level. Trump's next ask will be bigger than the first because bullies is Emory Callaway, >> followed by followed by Kent Dardinis. Good evening. Good evening, mayor, council members. My name is Emory Callaway. I am the vice president of the Tarant County Young Democrats and a resident of Fort Worth in District 4. We are a city that's growing, changing, and becoming more diverse by the day. And that's something that should be celebrated and embraced, not something to be shied away from. Earlier this morning, while driving to work, I noticed a pride sticker on the back of a stranger's car. In that short and fleeting moment moment, I couldn't help but smile just as I always do when I see people expressing their authentic selves. It made me feel seen and reminded me that it reminded me that even in a city where I don't always feel welcomed, that there are others like me out there. To me, that's what diversity, equity, and inclusion is and why it is so important. Not only important, but essential to force success. Because DEI isn't just about being seen, it's about belonging. It's not just about surviving, but about living with dignity, pride, and with the confidence that our city is truly ours as well. That is why I stand here before you tonight is because Fort Worth must ensure that programs and initiatives remain in place. Dismantling DEI doesn't make Fort strong stronger. It makes us smaller. It tells our minority communities and neighbors that they are less valued, less seen, and less protected in public life. It tells our children that equity is negotiable, not something that is rightfully deserved, and that inclusion is optional, and that justice is something we abandon when it gets politically inconvenient, or when politicians in all caps. Let's not pretend what is happening here is because the people of Fort Worth are demanding the end of DEI. They're not. This pressure is not local. It's national. It's coming from figures like Donald Trump who want to drag us backward. Who view DI as a threat because they fear the future they can't control. Shaped by the people they refuse to understand. But here's the truth. Fort Worth doesn't answer to Donald Trump. But you council members answer to us, the people who elected for you to serve us. And so I implore you to do the right thing tonight. Make the decisions that we, your constituents, are asking and set up for what is right, just, and best for our city. DEI is not about division. It's about recognizing potential. It's about opening doors, rectifying historic wrongs, embracing the individuality of our collective humanity, and building systems where everyone has an opportunity, not just the well-connected. The this belief is not radical. It's rooted in human dignity and fairness. the very principles you should stand on as public officials. I will close with this. This council has a democratic majority. Well, that should mean something. It should mean standing up for equity. It should mean not stripping away our rights and folding under public pressure. It should mean being bold and not backing down. So, I urge you, do not be silent. Be Fort Worth strong and vote to keep DEI alive. Our next speaker is Kent Decardinius followed by Allison Compola. >> Uh good evening. Uh thank you for letting me speak. My name is Kent Cardis and I live in Miss Martinez's district. Uh I'm here to speak in favor of keeping diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives as part of Fort Worth programs. Uh voting to terminate these programs would be shortsighted. These programs are part of what make Fort Worth a community and allow its citizens to thrive no matter an individual's background. Uh I want to veer away from what I prepared just because uh I was really impressed by uh Mr. Chapa, your your staff's uh presentation as well as the presentation by the members of the Chamber of Commerce. Um I'd like to say that we're here none none of us should need to argue about why we should keep DEI initiatives. We're having this debate tonight and not a year ago because the city's been threatened. We've been threatened and it's a very effective threat. It's $40 million. That's not chump change. Um my concern is that we can do all the talking tonight. We can do all the hard work and it's hard work to scramble and try to save that money. Uh we can do all this. We can have a vote and we can save that money in this vote tonight. But what's the next threat going to be? Once we cave to one threat, there's going to be another one. There's going to be another one. And we've seen it. We've seen it in this what, six months of our current administration. Now is the time to stand up and say we're not going to cave into this threat because the next one it's it will be a bridge too far. You know, some of you will vote no tonight because this will be the bridge too far already. the next threat some more of you will will will say say no and eventually it'll get to a threat where hopefully all of you will say we can't do this. So please think about it that way. I mean there's going to be some hard choices. Maybe we raise taxes. Maybe we cut programs. Maybe we join a lawsuit to fight for those funds. But that's what needs to happen. Um thank you for all of your hard work. I know it's hard to to to govern I know it's hard to manage. I appreciate all you do. Um, but please vote to maintain DEI. Thank you. Our next speaker is Allison Compo followed by Alan Loba. >> Good evening everybody. My name is Alison Campolo. I'm actually not a Fort Worth resident. I am the chair of the Ter County Democratic Party and that's how I'm speaking to you today. I represent a lot of people who live in your city and your city leads our county. Um, and I want to give some context too to how a lot of us are coming here tonight. Um, I know that you guys are not many of you some of you but many of you are in a difficult position you don't envy being in. Um, you're you're put a rock and a hard place. you don't want to have to choose between the money and the programs, which are the right thing to keep. Um, but I I know you're under risk, but I'd like to point out that we're all under risk, too, as citizens under the current administration. Just as some examples, for instance, 17 million Americans just lost their health care. Uh we have citizens who are legal residents or legal tourists being illegally detained and deported because due process has ended in this country. Um economically many of us are suffering under the current administration. We've seen the current jobs numbers. They're not great. The risk continues and as citizens we're doing our part. So, I'm sitting in this room with people who spent all April and May and June fighting to keep our non-racist, non-jerrymandered districts in the county commissioner's court. I'm sitting in this room today with people who at the drop of a hat with no notice spent eight hours trying to testify at a registring hearing on Monday in Arlington. Then spent another 25 hours trying to testify at a registering hearing in in Austin and then spent five hours today testifying and trying to save human services here in can in our county commissioner's court and now are here for how many hours with their kids and families trying to testify to save our DEI programs? Um, so I know that it's a hard position for you, but I want to say that we're doing our part as citizens, and I hope that you can do your part as our city councilors as well. Um, and just to echo what some other people have said, you know, there's a reason that our nation doesn't negotiate with terrorists. There's a reason that when you're being blackmailed, the police do not think that you should give them the ransom money. This is the exact same situation. Do not comply with a ransom demand. It will never end. will never end. We'll be here every time with 70 of us fighting to keep what's rightfully ours. Thank you to everyone who's ready to do the right thing. Thank you to our city councilors who have asked excellent questions. Obviously, we we appreciate the good information. This is way more information than we've ever received from the state or from the county commissioner's court. So, thank you the staff. But do the right thing. Thank you so much for fighting for us. Alan Loba followed by Sabrina Ball. >> Hi, I'm Alan Loba. I live at 3628 Kimberly Lane. I'm in District 9 served by uh Council Member Beck. Thank you so much. Um I have two proposals for you. Um one is I based on what we heard of the resolution that was explained to us so well from the city council city manager's office. That's brilliant. I would invite one of you to grow a backbone and ask you to amend your resolution and take the phrase suspend the application and enforcement of certain ores and resolutions out of this resolution. You've created an excellent program about small businesses. It's supported by these three chambers of commerce. It's an excellent work. You don't have to deny DEI in order to advance this small business proposal. I invite you to do that. But in its current form, I invite you to vote against this resolution. In just this last seven months that we heard recently um individuals corporations universities, and now even the state of Texas have bowed down to the wishes of one deranged man and who's following a playback playbook that most of us find deplorable. They are trying to whitewash, and I use that word in all its racist overtones that is intended by this federal administration. And I find that deplorable. When the history of our time is written and studied, and I believe it will be, I want the city of Fort Worth to be written in those pages to have stood tall with integrity and moral background to stand against this current federal administration. Every word in our current policy was carefully chosen to convey exactly what we mean. I do appreciate these efforts, but I recognize the phrase small business in air quotes means that we are trying to get around a work around what they are trying to do in terms of whitewashing uh DEI out of our language. I want the world to judge us on the strength of our spirit and our character. If you pass this resolution, you will be no longer associated with strength and courage. You'll be just another feather in that cap. It's guided by greed and lust for power. My second proposal is what you said, Representative Nettles. I propose that and I'm volunteering to host the world's most expensive bake sale. I'm going to sell $1 million blueberry muffins. They will be superb. But the question is, I only have 41 of them. and I'll do this annually so that we can make this budget work. Maybe I'll start with Ross Perau and see if you'll buy all of them. I volunteer to find the money. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Sabrina Ball. Sabrina will be followed by Aisha Hassan. So, we've talked a lot about values here. Well, I'm a native Texan and my Christian Texas mom always told me, "You are the company you keep and we take care of each other." Right now, there's a guy and his buddies telling us what to do with our community and with our friends. Let's talk about that guy. It's this guy right here standing next to his friend Jeffrey Epstein, the pedophile. They shared a wonderful secret. This is Donald. He has 34 felony convictions and he's made a lot of bad choices over the years that go against our values. We don't have time to cover it all. So, here's just a taste of the last month. He withheld our tax dollars from public schools, throwing districts into panic as they scrambled to care for disabled children, feed kids, and provide tutoring. Now he claims the money's released. But as Donald likes to say, we'll see. He got a bad report card on labor, so he fired the messenger. Will our economy survive? We'll see. He cut funding for research, including the science of reading. That's for Fort Worth ISTD. So we as a country will lose all those advant advancements and our PhD students. Will our country fall behind? We'll see. He cut health care for over 11 million people and food benefits for 3 million, mostly seniors. Will our grandparents survive and thrive? We'll see. And he laughed at people he sent to a concentration camp without due process about being eaten by alligators. Will he be remembered as a fascist? We'll see. So, let's be clear. Donald is making bad choices that hurt our families and our future. We are just regular folks. We are just regular folks and you are in positions of power elected to stand up for us. My mama would have said, "That's Donald. That Donald is a bad dude standing there with a pedophile." and she would have reminded you, "Help your friends even if it hurts. Because bullies don't stop when you give them what they want. They come back for more. Be brave with us because history will remember who stood and who knelt." Sassan will be followed by Mark Christensen. Good. Good evening. My name is Aisha Hassan and I'm a community member of Fort Worth and I live in District 7. So many powerful things have already been said this evening and I want to take my time to remind city council members and the mayor that you do not have to bow down to intimidation. The Trump administration is using fair tactics to coersse you all, our leaders, to disregard the will of the people you serve. The people standing here today are the people whom you have made a promise to represent. Ending DEI is clearly not what the people want or need. I read I read recently just yesterday that the in the Fort Worth report that the city of Fort Worth is the first city in North Texas to consider terminating its DEI initiatives. Shame. If you will vote to NDEI in our city, the impacts will be felt for decades to come. And maybe this doesn't matter to you. Perhaps from your perspectives, the dismantling of programs that promote equity is a prudent action when faced with funding cuts. But I will remind you, withholding funding is a scare tactic used by those who wish to subvert the will of the people. And giving into this tactic will quickly degrade the trust, goodwill, and faith the people here have in city council. Because if you're not willing to listen and take action for the people whom you sought to represent, you have become a prop useful only to those who seek to dominate power, politics, and people. Thank you. >> Our next speaker is Mark Christensen. Mr. Christensen's followed by an Zeta. Good evening, uh, Mayor Parker and, uh, city council. We're going to speak in favor of the resolution. I believe I'm probably the first one here to to do so. I appreciate that you've, uh, provided a logical path forward and uh, it represents a lot of work that you've accomplished, and I thank you for that. I uh, think that federal funding is way too much uh, to lose. I want to speak about the Meechum airport where I'm a member of the uh aviation community. It's a $170 million uh master plan which Fort Worth only represents 10% of that of that funds. The rest is state and federal uh funding. This is going to improve things such as making taxiways uh hangers which are u right now uh over capacity. We need more hangers out there. there. Uh it's going to improve the uh fuel as far as right now it's a below ground uh tanks and needs to be above ground and where you can do inspections and modernize. This represents 900 employees and $165 million of economic annual revenue. And right now it's become the uh second busiest general aviation airport in the uh in the uh city. Projects like this are just too high of a price to put uh on the chopping block or to possibly lose federal funding for. Thank you for uh your time and thank you for your uh consideration in advancing this uh resolution. >> Our next speaker is an Zeta followed by Bob Williams. >> Good evening. My name is Anne Zeta and I live in district 9 and I have been a resident of Fort Worth for over 35 years. I wanted to share with you my personal frustration with the executive order requiring the elimination of diversity, equity, and inclusion. And I say the words because as others have said, I think it is important to clearly name what it is that we are considering dismantling. I find a couple of things particularly concerning in two of the resolutions whereas sections. I was going to read them, but there are a lot of legalies. So, I apologize, but my layman's language I feel like the first one says that the DOJ will be investigating and prosecuting anyone operating DEI programs. By passing this resolution, we are saying we have no problem with this. We are giving in to this. The second concerning whereas basically says that the DOJ wants neighbors to narc. So, do we agree to go along with this as well? If so, where does this end? I ask because during the seven years that I served on this council, local control was under attack from both the state and federal levels for most of those years. But clearly this has reached new extremes. I know that many of you agree with me that for the quality of life issues addressed by a city, the electeds at the local level are best equipped to know and serve their constituents. This order to further attack is a further attack on local control by requiring the elimination of programs that address inequities in our community. Inequities some of which were created by past policies that resulted in these outcomes and therefore are our responsibility to fix. This will not be resolved by passing this resolution. If you do not take a stand here, these attacks and efforts to restrict and control cities and keep local residents from living out our values will continue to come. The twisted effort to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion by saying that these programs violate federal civil rights laws is offensive to all who have fought for those rights. To do this is to avoid risks and costs of potential challenges without challenging these executive orders themselves is unacceptable. Listen, I have been in your shoes and believe me when I say I understand that budgets are tight. But if we are still in if I were still in one of the seats, I would not move forward with this suspension of vital programs that speak to our values without a fight. If you must pass this resolution, I would ask that at a minimum you add to your motion a commitment to join an existing lawsuit or file one of your own. Fort Worth has long been a city that protected the rights and promoted opportunity for all residents. and I hope that you will continue to do so. You do not have to leave the state to resist. All you have to do tonight is push a button. Other cities are fighting and you should too. Don't bend the knee. Thank you. >> Our next speaker is Bob Williams. Following Bob Williams, I'm going to call Edward Delgado, who's for council members. He's a little further down the list, but he has a kiddo with him. So, we're going to pull him up next. Good evening, Mayor Parker, city manager, distinguished council members, and staff. I may be the only one present from Dallas, but uh I want to congratulate the city of Fort Worth for reaching a major milestone of exceeding 1 million residents. is great thing. If you keep up that, you'll be bigger than big D. Uh we have the same problems on the other side of the fence. Every community, every city has the same challenges. President, major thing I can say is to um take seriously the council member that raised the question of what do we do if we vote it down. You have to have a plan B. Plan B is beware. There's a lot of fine print if you accept those funds. One city employee could be construed at the federal level as being that bad actor. That could be their opinion, not ours locally. And there's a treble damage if that person is found guilty of some kind of minor infraction. So if you adopt the DEI, then just beware of the consequences, intended and unintended. I'll yield the rest of my time. Two other speakers. >> Our Mr. Mr. Delgado will be followed by Maggie Martinez. Thank you. Thank you for moving me up. Uh he's on a strict schedule. So, um I'm Eddie Delgado. I'm co-leader of Fort Worth area Indivisible, who along with another Indivisible group at I12 put on the No Kings protest on June 14th. Um I can't believe we're talking about this in 2025. So, for those of you up there who want to take us back to the 50s and 60s like O'Hare and my little buddy Bo French and 47, here's a quote. You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it. It's Malcolm X. I brought my son tonight after a lot of thought uh because I wanted him to see what it looks like when people in power cave to bullies and sell out their communities and betray their own dignity so he knows what not to become. We teach our son that we don't bow to tyrants. We stand our ground. That's supposed to be a Texas value, right? So why are some of you guys bending the knee to a narcissistic, misogynistic racist fascist pedophilic convicted felon? Don't be Don't bend the knee for Trump because he's dangling promises of power or cash. That's not leadership and that's not what you were elected to do. So, please vote the right way. For those of you who were leaning that way, you know what to do. The other ones, do whatever the hell you want. Release the files. F ICE. Free Palestine. Power to the people. Thank you. >> Our next speaker is Maggie Martinez, followed by Lisa Ethamu. Good evening. My name is Maggie Martinez. I'm a resident of District 2. And um honestly, I was hesitant hesitant about speaking with you all today. It's easy to feel like our comments are willfully overlooked, especially when we've witnessed elected officials just do whatever they want. Anyway, shout out to Tim O'Hare in the Commissioner's Court. But I'm the type of person who loves to run my mouth, so I decided I should use my powers for good this evening. Despite what our nation's current administration would like you to believe diversity equity and inclusion isn't some trend or political weapon. It's not part of some radical agenda, and it shouldn't be twisted into a set of scary buzzwords used to manipulate fear. DEI is a commitment, a principle, a spark of hope for small business owners, public workers, and the black, brown, disabled, LGBTQ residents of Fort Worth. the people whose communities rely on these policies to be seen, heard, and protected. DEI makes us feel like we belong, no matter our race, gender, background, or zip code. It's how cities like ours begin to repair the harm caused by decades of policies that have ignored people like me, my family, and my neighbors. I've been blessed to call Fort Worth my home for 15 years. I fell in love with this city so much that I decided to start my I decided to start my family here. I want my children and their friends and all kids here to grow up in a Fort Worth that sees them, supports them, and gives them the tools to lead and be successful. A Fort Worth that reflects fairness and not fear. But let's be real. If this is truly about federal compliance, then you should be fighting for us legally. Other big cities are standing firm and defending their DEI programs. Why are you acting like we don't have that option? Or maybe other options to find funding within the budget to keep DEI running? It has to be either due to lack of courage or just straight up lack of empathy. You can't claim to represent the people while dismantling the very protections that help us thrive. This isn't compliance. It's eraser. You're prioritizing the perception of legality over the lived reality of your residents. Getting rid of DEI doesn't protect the city. It protects the systems that created inequities in the first place. This resolution clearly tells us that we are not worth fighting for. that equity is optional and that inclusion is negotiable. So, if you vote to suspend DEI today, please remember my words. You might silence a department, but you will never silence my community. We will continue to apply pressure until you feel it at every meeting, every vote, every election, because we are the pressure and we'll be here until justice is no longer up for negotiation. [Applause] Lisa will be followed by Sandra Culie. >> Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Lisa Fu. I was born here at U Harris Hospital and I grew up on the west side over in Ridgely. This is my city. This is our city. DEI made Fort Worth great and continues to make it great. Meanwhile, Donald Trump Donald Trump is trying to rapidly consolidate power to himself far beyond what our Constitution allows for the president. Among other tactics, he uses extortion to bend institutions to his will. It's hard. I know. Now, your positions on this Fort Worth City Council didn't come easy. Old white men had to be forced to consider minorities, women, and disabled folks in government. DEI made Fort Worth great. You owe everything to the people of Fort Worth rather than to the guy who is trying to extort you by the action proposed today. What is it you're saying about where the power lies? I say, and I believe the people who put you in those seats would agree, that the power lies with the people, not with the orange man in Washington. Don't give away our power to him by obeying his authoritarian orders. You don't have to do it. You don't have to. You are the decision makers on that. Don't pretend that the people are okay with dismantling DEI. It did not bubble up from the people. Did it? Did this? I don't believe so. We will not be bullied into leaving our friends behind. You are here to serve the people and as our leaders, you should stand on principles and values rather than enable that wouldbe dictator in the White House. Thank you. Our next speaker is Sandra Kulie followed by John Hinosa. Sandra Culie. John Hinahosa will be followed by Amy Super. Good evening, Mayor Parker and council members. I have prepared my statement so I don't miss any of my points. My name is John Henosa. I'm a Fort Worth voter and resident in Council Member Bllelock's District 10. I'm also a precinct chair for 3648 in my neighborhood. I'm here today to urge the council to protect the 277.1 million in multi-year federal funding and 40 million annual awards that the Fort Worth city relies on. As uh city manager Jay Chapas stated in June, the suspension is necessary to stay compliant with federal law and avoid losing these critical multi-year grants. This is not about politics. This is about fiscal uh emergency. That funding supports at least 10 essential city departments including the police, fire and emergency management, transportation, public works, and neighborhood services. If we lose that money, forworth residents will be the ones who suffer through reduced safety, lower emergency response times, and delayed infrastructure projects. The city cannot afford to risk this level of funding, risk losing this level of funding. We owe it to the taxpayers to act responsibly and prioritize the services that keep our city running. Please disregard the hyperbo hyperbole you have heard today and approve the resolution and ensure Fort Worth remains eligible for every federal dollar our city depends on. Thank you for your time. >> Our next speaker is Amy Super followed by Payton Jackson. Good evening, Mayor Parker and council members. I'm a constituent within district 3 represented by Councilman Michael Crane. I'm going to speak to you about municipal financial responsibility. I think it's safe to assume that each of you sitting on this dis are what most average Fort Worth residents would consider financially affluent. I'm not mad at you for achieving exceptional financial success which provides for your own financial stability. That being said, could any one of you or even all of you combined whip out your wallets and cover the $200 million plus the city of Fort Worth will stand to lose if you fail to vote in favor of resolution 255257? Or how about just the $40 million plus for this next single year? No takers. Okay. Uh, Councilman Nettles, with a straight face, you sat up here tonight and suggested raising our tax rates to make up the millions and millions of dollars our city is at risk of losing. We're already taxed beyond what so many can afford. Don't any of you even think of raising our tax rates. It will be you who pay. Perhaps not of significant financial cost to you personally, but it will cost several of you the seats you currently occupy. Is this council prepared to put its employees in jeopardy of being at risk of being subject to individual civil and criminal liability for inadvertently violating the False Claims Act? Have you given any consideration to the impact on our city's ability to attract qualified and competent individuals if con candidates must first weigh whether they're willing to take the risk of working for this city because you all chose to virtue signal rather than deal with the reality that is now before you. Next, can the city of Fort Worth afford to absorb the cost of those triple damages, which according to the example provided as part of the presentation given tonight, was not at an ex insignificant sum. The last time I spoke before council regarding our budget and supporting a no new revenue tax rate, at least two current members of this council, clap back from the dis chastising residents who had encouraged the council to exercise financial responsibility when making budgeting decisions as well as setting city tax rates. That was appalling behavior. Let's not hear or see that happen again tonight or any other time. It's your responsibility. You have a fiduciary responsibility to the residents of Fort Worth. Vote in favor of resolutions 255257. The city of Fort Worth cannot afford other options. Elections do indeed have consequences and you cannot sit idly by ignoring those consequences at the expense of the financial solveny of this city without taxing all of us into financial oblivion. Our >> our next speaker is Payton Jackson. Payton will be followed by Tammy Pierce. Oh, glory to God. Good afternoon, council. The most educated demographic in America, or at least one of them, votes the most ignorantly. And for whatever reason, we have decided to champion things that will never benefit us. Diversity, equity, and inclusion. They say it benefits women, but they can't even tell you what a woman is. They say it benefits the black community, but they literally just finished advocating for something like an open border. And according to the EEOC in a book titled Back of the Hiring Line, that's not really conducive. But I wouldn't expect anyone here to know anything about the EEOC because somehow someway, the 11th largest city in this nation doesn't even have an office for the agency. Which brings me to my next point. They say that diversity, equity, and inclusion helps people with disabilities. Well, I stand before you today as a parent of a child with autism to let you know that if the city of Fort Worth actually cared about ADA and people with disabilities, not only would we have an office for EEOC, we would have a better funded RISE program. We definitely wouldn't have MHMR in charge and community organizations like the Boys and Girls Club on the north side and UC and South Polly would be ADA compliant and last time I checked they are not. But also families like the one of Xavier Hernandez would have seen justice by now. But the sad reality is while we waste time whining about skin color and made up pronouns, made up pronouns, we have neglected the most vulnerable people within our society for the most superficial reasons. But as a woman of God, hear me when I say nothing that is ever truly meant for you can ever be taken away. Not even by a white man in America. My name is Miss Jackson. I don't need you to walk me into any position. And no, I don't want a seat at your table. Unless I'm welcomed, and I mean truly welcome by merit, not mandate. Seek my employment. Seek my partnership because you see my value. You understand my potential. I have proven the merit to carry out the task at hand. But do not belittle me down to my skin color. No. Because truth be told, I don't have to face racism. Racism has to face me. I don't have to face sexism. Sexism has to face me. I give people millions of reasons to hate me. If you choose my skin color, you just aren't trying hard enough. I give people millions of reasons to love and seek partnership with me. If you choose my skin color of all things, well, quite literally, you are too stupid for me to tolerate. This is not 1865, nor is it 1965. Let the victim mentality go. That concludes my time with Fort Worth City Council. It's been nice, but God bless you all. Thank you, council. Mayor Parker, whenever you're ready, you can call your next speaker. >> Our next speaker is Tammy Pierce. Tammy will be followed by Jeffrey Haidider. >> Good evening, Mayor and Council. Tammy Pierce. I am CEO and president of United Black Contractors. I'm an advocate for black men in construction. So, I'm going to take you on a real quick h history lesson to help you understand why we need DEI. 1863, Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. There was no succession plan. It was January 1. The slave owners took shotguns and told all the slaves to get out of the plantation. Thousands of slaves were walking through the woods. But see, they forgot that we were the general contractors and we were the farmers. So we began to build our own towns or we we began to build our own cities. But then the clan was created with Jim Crow laws. So the clan came through and destroyed and burnt thousands of black towns. And in every case scenario, they killed the general contractor first. Why we need DEI? 1869, the Dow Jones was created. Everything I'm saying to you, Google it. The Dow Jones was created. The top three industries was cotton, tobacco, and sugar from slavery. early turn of the century, you had the Davis Bacon Act which prohibited African-Americans for being in construction in the south in the east and the southeast. Then we come down to the civil rights movement with Martin Luther King in 1860, excuse me, 1964, LBJ created the uh housing and urban development and then in 1968 he extended the employment act and former President Richard Nixon created the office of NBE. It did not become a law until 1974 because white women, Hispanic, Asian, Island, Pacifica, everybody said, "No, we're minorities." It's on record. Richard Nixon said this was created for the African-American after the civil rights movement. Last year, we celebrated 50 years of DEI. The people that the law was created for, we benefited the least. We're 1% in the city of Fort Worth. We need this. This opens up the door for conversations. Are we not worth it? William Gustad McDonald was a slave that came to Fort Worth with no shoes on. Became the first millionaire. I didn't make this up. Look it up. He saved the Fort Worth economy during the Great Depression. He was a banker, fraternal bank and trust. The establishment here borrowed money from him, never paid him back. They destroyed the bank, burnt down his house, destroyed him out of history. Are we not worth it? You mentioned Mr. Chapo. You talked about Councilman. And let me tell you, Councilman, how much I appreciate you, and thank you for taking a stand for us and being our champion for DEI. You mentioned that it would increase 4 cents. Correct me if I'm wrong. Dick His Arena was two cents on the on the ballot. Are we not worth it? So, I'm asking mayor and council with the city of Fort Worth being 20% African-American, we are taxpayers on public private partnerships. Are we not worth it? >> Our next speaker is Jeffrey Haidider, followed by Jeffrey Pastel. >> Good evening, Mayor Parker, city manager Chapa, and members of council. My name is Jeffrey Haidider. I live in Councilwoman Hills district and I'm here tonight to oppose this resolution and speak in favor of diversity, equity, and inclusion here in Fort Worth. I can understand the difficult position that you all are in. Federal government is holding more than $40 million a year in federal funding hostage. Here's the good news. We don't have to do their bidding. Luckily, you were not elected to serve the people of Washington, DC. You were elected to serve the people of Fort Worth. Tonight, we are here because we love this city and we want what's best for the people of this city. And the people of Fort Worth are overwhelmingly clear. We want opportunity. Opportunity for our small business leaders, for our people with disabilities, for our qualified people seeking housing and employment. The Department of Diversity and Inclusion is our first line of defense against those who would otherwise reject grants and investments, reject accessible building, and reject job and housing applications purely for their own personal prejudice. Tonight, the 11 of you have the ability to do something remarkable. Give us a city that invests in its people, not one that wants to score political points with Washington, DC. To end diversity and inclusion is more than just closing a department. It is betraying a promise that Fort Worth made seven years ago with the race and culture task force to not only listen to people like me who live in Crestline, who live in Colonial, who live in Ridgely, who live in downtown, but to continue to tap the enormous skill, talent, and potential, and enthusiasm of Fort Worth's women and black, Hispanic, and Asian communities. Tonight, you will be remembered not for your private opinions or your personal hesitations, but only for how you vote. The entire city is watching. Please do the right thing and vote to maintain diversity and inclusion and keep Fort Worth strong, independent, and inclusive. I think many of us will agree our Fort Worth values are worth at least those four cents. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jeff Pastel followed by Melinda Aquaskski. >> How y'all doing? Uh I'm Jeff Post the third uh forward Texas. Uh my father Jeff Postetta Jr. uh just arrived back from Alaska today. So he couldn't be here. He had to get some other jobs for um from Cedar Hill uh today and attend some stuff for my brother. Uh my father and I we moved here from to forward in 2013 um equipped with some basketball skills and 15 years of experience renovating and building facilities respectfully. My basketball dreams ended my senior year at Arlington Heights High School here in Fort Worth. But my dad's construction experience in the city of Fort Worth's diversity and inclusion program fueled our family's dream of building communities for people and building people for communities. This city of Fort Worth's diversity inclusion program fueled my father's dream. Because of this diversity inclusion program, our family started a construction and drywall business from a kitchen table in Alamo Heights here in Fort Worth, Texas that has performed over $20 million in bonded work over the last nine and a half years and employed over 30 people in that time period. Now, the city of Fort Worth wants to eliminate and revise the program. My family would tell you the current program works, it produces, and is still needed. My dad and I feel 400 years of mistreatment of a group of people can be fixed with only 40 or 50 years of limited MWBE programming. When you add the current gender mandering at the county and state level, it's starting to feel like a clear trend here. As my fiance prepares to bring our daughter Blue Postel into this world in December, our family recognized that city of Fort Worth has to bring in federal dollars to support other city entities that support our kiddos, senior citizens, senior citizens, our homeless population, veterans, and other community concerns. So, we will trust in you, city, and staff to create an equal and balanced playing field. And we keep our eye on the potential development of a small business program in place of a current program. We trust you guys, city staff, everybody to do what's right. We will lead by example by developing our skill, helping others develop their skill, and encouraging all to show up ready to work and add value to forward Texas. Thank you for my time. What's up, family? Our next speaker is Melinda Akosski followed by Jesse Meyer. >> Hi, my name is Melinda Akowski and I'm here today to urge you to vote in favor of the resolution suspending certain ordinances and programs, specifically the city's DEI initiative to protect Fort Worth's federal funding. If we don't ask act, we risk losing 2770 million dollars in multi-year federal grants that Fort Worth depends on. That funding supports at least 10 critical departments, the police, fire and emergency management, public works, transportation, and housing programs, and also neighborhood services. Losing that money would directly harm residents. It could mean reduced public safety, longer emergency response times, installed infrastructure projects. To those of you who are considering voting against this resolution, I ask, what are the areas of the budget you you are willing to cut to make up for the $277 million that we will that will be stripped from Fort Worth. The solution cannot be to raise our taxes to make up for the loss of federal funding. Families are struggling to afford homes. Homeowners do not have the capacity to endure another property tax increase. You owe it to Fort Worth taxpayers to act responsibly and preserve the services that keep our city safe, functional, and growing. Please vote to suspend the DEI program and ensure we remain eligible for every federal dollar the city relies on. I would also like to add that those fed federal city or dollars that we're looking at saying we don't need, we won't take would also like to remind you those are our dollars that we've sent to the federal government. And so by saying that we don't want those or we're going to find another source. So then we're going to double dip here, we have to pay it there and then we're going to propose raising taxes here to make up for the difference of that that we're not going to bring back over here. I find that to be completely irresponsible and you've been tasked with sitting on this das to represent us and to be fiduciary fiduciarily responsible and to act in the best interest of all of the citizens of Fort Worth, not the small number that's here. Because when you take into account that there's 70 people here speaking in favor of keeping social programs that are going to harm additional residents and taking money that we rightfully is ours coming from the federal government. I really would urge you to consider what you're asking of us. We're tapped out. We don't have an unending bank account. And to say that we can just raise taxes is very flippant and very irresponsible to say. We're out. We don't have any more homeowners are losing their homes because of property taxes and it's time that we address those issues and be responsible with the money that's been entrusted to you. Thank you for your time. Our next speaker is Jesse Meyer followed by David Martinez. >> Good evening. I'm Jesse Meyer and I'm a resident in District 3. The mission statement of our city is to make Fort Worth the most livable and best managed city in the country. That mission statement highlights that we have a commitment to all of our residents and our neighbors who make our communities what they are today. Protecting DEI initiatives means that we're honoring that commitment. We have made significant progress in this space and it would be a huge disservice to walk away now. I'm so proud of some of the instances where Fort Worth has chosen to take a stand to do the right thing and I encourage us to do that in the future. I understand the gravity of the scenario that you all are in and I know that you take this very seriously. It's a huge responsibility. I appreciate the efforts of all the chambers of commerce who have developed a solution here. But I think we have more creative solutions to explore and I urge you to vote no tonight until we have a better plan. We cannot be willing to compromise on our values. Now is the time to stand up for what's right and for what's best for our city. Thank you. Our next speaker is David Martinez. Mr. Martinez will be followed by Linda Ford. Good evening. Thanks for everybody being here that stayed. Um, I wanted to I wanted to say something. Um, um, growing up in Fort Worth and um, uh, I grew up in a diverse family. I have a my family is very diverse. Um, we have all types of ethnicities in our family. I don't like to pick out color or things like that. Even my own children are of mixed ethnicities and from different countries. Um we also have family discussions sometimes and we talk about you know you know when we're applying for uh scholarships things like that for the kids and stuff like that. I thought well you know your mom is this this and that I'm here we're there you know so they apply accordingly. Um and some kids get some of them uh would get more money than others and things like that. Those are the reality I grew up with. Also, growing up being Native American and seeing things that happened that was not right as a kid. You know, as a kid, I I thought everything was the same for everyone. I thought everybody got their hair cut by their teacher because it was too long. Um I realized it was cuz I'm Native American. Um you know, I thought, well, everybody gets hit for speaking their uh indigenous language. I thought, well, that's everybody then. Um, so growing up, I was uh witness to all these things and didn't know till later on that it didn't happen to everybody. Um, and so uh not for the same reasons or things like that. So I I'm pretty sure everybody of the whole color spectrum, whatever, goes through uh bullying and things like that from um mean people. One of the things I wanted to bring up is how in Fort Worth we live right down the street from nuclear weapons. We are faced with uh imminent danger all the time with a nuclear war. Um all across the world we have people fighting different ethicies, different religions, different countries. And how how would our city be any different? We're fighting our neighbors. our neighbors kids are are going to be uh involved in these things and these decisions that are very difficult. I'm not the one that's here to make a decision for any for the council. But I would like to say this like it has always been my idea to take the money and then deal with it later. Um a lawsuit, things like that. But if that's a way out, then that's the way out. But also want us to look at the problems that we are having. They're obvious to everyone. Thank you. God bless. >> Our next speaker is Linda Ford. Linda Ford, we followed by Annabelle Cortez. >> Hi, Mayor Parker, council members, and the city office manager and staff. Thank you all so much for being here tonight. My name is Linda Ford and I reside in Mira Vista in Southwest Fort Worth in district three held by Michael Crane and I'm here to speak in support of the amendment to eliminate the DEI department. If we don't take this action, as many people have said, we're going to lose overall $277 million in federal funding that we rely on. And no bake sale is going to make it up. Since we moved to Fort Worth in 2013, our taxes keep increasing. And if you have to raise our taxes to cover for not voting for this measure, um I I don't know what we're going to do. Um I I keep hearing people talk about needing to keep DEI, but all I'm hearing is victim mentality. Why can't we just come together and find solutions like the city has? You keep talking about uh reimagining DEI. Well, I think the council has done this and on a personal level, my son is a new Marine and there is no rank in the Marines as far as color, background, or anything like that. And I think we need to get away from that. We need to start looking at people as individuals. We can't afford to lose this funding. And we as residents will be the ones that will have to pay. I'm sorry. I I'm having an allergy attack. Um, Fort Worth has been one of the fastest growing cities in Texas and we need this money to keep up with the increase in population, expanded building and services. The people speaking have made this a political one, which I thought was about funding. Please vote for this new program to keep Fort Worth on the path to greatness. Thank you. [Applause] Annabelle Cortez followed by Glenda Diaz. Annabelle, Glenda Diaz, Michael Kindler. Michael here. Michael. Um, I am a uh probably the least prepared person for this, so bear with me. Um the uh I I would uh I am supporting to keep DEI. I do not want you to pass the resolution. I I've been I've been very moved. There's there's times when you're in Fort Worth and you and you wonder what kind of a city this is. And uh um there's so many people that have spoken today that just no matter what happens at the end of this, I uh I'm so heartened to hear so many people say so many heartfelt and profound things that um I find aspirational about what the city can become. Um I I I see Fort Worth as a place that is still evolving, really not what we're ultimately going to be. So, I get really excited about what this city can be in terms of accepting opportunity, all the all these different things. And uh and I do get disappointed in in how and how things um how I perceive the city to be, but then when I see things like tonight and so many people saying these inspirational things, I get really heart. And so, no matter what happens tonight, I'm going to come out of today feeling a lot better about the city. Um the uh I live in Metobrook and uh the uh we've been my family's been there for about 25 years and uh we love it there and one of the reasons we love it is because not everybody looks like us. So we get a chance to have moments and conversations with people who have different experiences than us. And uh and what what happens out of that amongst a lot of other really good things is empathy which I think is uh in short supply. um these days. The uh so so I look at this book now and I think of it as obviously a very very difficult um decision to make. It's a lot of money. I'm not going to um say that that's that's that's not an issue. But I would like to um I'd like to maybe potentially think about this as an opportunity to show the world what Fort Worth is. to show the world that Fort Worth is not going to, as a lot of people have said today, why why do we have to listen to a racist president to tell us how regret our city is going to be? I mean, what is going on now is we we all see what's going on and it is just surreal the experiences that all of us are going through, what this country is going through. If somebody would have told me this is what's going to this country is going to be like um 50 years ago or whatever, I would not have believed it. So please recognize the insanity that is happening in this world and please stand up and make Fort Worth the one that says this is ridiculous and we're not going to do this. Thank you. >> Our next speaker is Allison Fitzgerald followed by Becky Dillain. Allison Fitzgerald. Um, Becky Jane. Becky Becky will be followed by Jessica Irvin. Good evening, Mayor Parker, council council um members and city manager Chapa. I I would like to talk about how we got here into into this um place where we are. What brought us here and uh to be honest about it to be talking about this uh diversity, equity, and inclusion. White supremacy and mythical beliefs in racial superiority have shaped American history for over 400 years. From the genocide and forced removal of Native Americans to cattle slavery, Kulex clan, lynching, and segregation. These aren't relics of the past. They are the foundation of a system that still affects us today as we grapple with redlinining and urban renewal, mass incarceration, gerrymandering and voter suppression, pervasive discrimination and employment, education and housing, segregation and disinvestment in black and brown communities and rising poverty falling failing instru intrastructure in urban neighborhoods in cycles of crime, drug dependency, welfare and reliance, anger and alienation. It's ugly and it makes people mad. It makes people to feel it and it makes people angry to see it and it makes people angry to see it continuing to go on and on and on. Now we are being asked or you are being asked I should say to make a choice. Should we dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in order to receive uh 10% of our annual budget from the federal government and I don't that sounded like that wasn't much money and I know that's not true but let's be clear this is not a financial question. It's an ethical one. It's a moral choice. I I've been wondering so much lately about what it would feel like to be a black, Hispanic, or Latino and watching your opportunities vanish. An immigrant terrified that you or your family will be deported. A person with disabilities worried Medicare might be slashed. LGBTQ fearing for their safety and fleeing the country to simply live free. What would that feel like? I think it would feel like terror. I think it would feel like being terrorized by your own county. Your Thank you. Our next speaker is Jessica Irvin, followed by Alex Torres. [Applause] Hello, my name is Jessica Irvin and I live in District 5. Um, I'm a fourth generation Fort Worthian resident and I'm proud to call East Fort Worth my home. One of the reasons I've always loved this city and specifically why I chose to live in East Fort Worth is because of its diversity. Um, in the last 10 years, it's been incredible just to see how much the city has changed in so many positive ways, especially in um, diverse representation and just the growth of small businesses. However, I hate hearing some of our current leadership point to the success and progress as if we've arrived and we no longer need these programs in place to uh, continue the trajectory that we've been on. Um, while I love our city, just like our whole country, we are guilty of a very exclusionary and racist history. We owe it to our community to continue DEI programs to provide equitable opportunities to all Fort Worth residents. Um, last but not least, I am both an educator and a parent to young kids. Um, and I challenge our leadership to show this next generation that they care more about um, young the opportunities for our young people than about appeasing bullies. Um, our leadership should be ready to make hard decisions and sacrifices for the next generation and I hope to see our city stand its ground um, and continue to keep our DI programs. [Applause] Our next speaker is Alex Torres followed by Rod Stanley. >> Good evening everyone. My name is Alex Torres and I stand before you today as a constituent of District 6 and a proud resident of the city of Fort Worth. As such, I want to express my unwavering support for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Knowing that there is opposition to such simple ideals makes me question whether others truly understand the definition of these words or if it's simply easier to believe sound bites and rage bait that are spread by those who seek to divide us. If it's easier to bow down to fascism at the detriment of our friends, neighbors, and businesses. However, I can't help but ask myself if I am being naive. After all, we're talking about millions of dollars. But the answer to that is no. I am being a decent human being. Our city is already diverse. Equity simply means fairness and inclusion is the belief that no one gets left out. These are concepts that even the youngest of children understand and stand behind. Efforts to eliminate DEI ultimately eliminate stability as well as crucial opportunities to the most marginalized in our community. In fact, it will disenfranchise a great number of small businesses in our city. In a place as vibrant and diverse as Panther City, these differences have shaped who we are, and we must celebrate the richness that different backgrounds, identities, and experiences bring. I hope we as a city and as a community can rally to protect these values. Thank you for your time, and I hope you choose to represent all of the people of Fort Worth and not bow down to wannabe kings. Thank you. >> Our next speaker is Rod Stanley followed by Patrice Jones. Good evening. I am a Vietnam veteran who fought for some of the things that we're talking about today. I am a retiree and I live in district 5. I am here to address resolution 255258. First, I want to ensure my understanding is correct. You are proposing to suspend the application and enforcement of certain ordinances and resolutions which are only ordinance and resolutions referring to DEI. The reason being president's executive order 14173 where the DOJ has established a civil rights fraud initiative to prosecute any recipient of federal funds operating DEI programs in violation of civil rights laws and regulations. DEI or diversity, equity, inclusion in itself does not violate any civil rights. It does not discriminate, harass, or retaliate based on protected characteristics like race, sex, religion, or national origin. Diversity, equity, inclusion does not invoke restrictive participation of any group based on race, sex, religion, or national origin. DEI is actually the fulfillment of civil rights protection. DEI says everyone regardless of race, sex, religion, or national altering can and will participate. DEI is a moral motto. DEI is the dream model for ensuring civil rights protection. DEI says, let's stir the pot of everybody and let's let the best of us participate. Most of you are up here because of civil rights and DEI. A a rhetorical Most of y'all are here due to civil rights and DEI. That's a rhetorical question. Do any of you feel that DEI put you up there over more qualified people? Do any of you feel you are up you're unqualified to fulfill your duties and responsibilities? So there is no reason to suspend the application and enforcement of certain ordinances and resolutions relating to DEI to ensure the continued receipt of federal funding because DEI does not violate any civil rights resolutions. Thank you. >> Thank you. [Applause] >> Patrice Jones will be followed by Mark Fulmer. We're not going to screen a movie. We're going to fix the lights. Just a moment for a second. Patrice Jones, Mark Fulmer. Mark will be followed by Edward Spears, mayor, city council members, city manager. I address you this evening standing in support for the resolution. Now the basis of my support lies for two reasons. First of all, it's a common sense approach that why would you put infrastructure programs the city of Fort Worth to put them on the chopping block. We had Mr. Christensen had already mentioned such as the Alliance airport and other initiatives that really they're part of the funding that we pay into as taxpayers. So for those of you who insist that this funding will be raised by merely raising our taxes, I detest that socialist democrat idea of big government welfare programs at the expense of the citizens. I do not stand for that. The other aspect of this is that when I listen tonight, you would think that with all the glowing tributes that I heard that DEI is this wonderful holy grail that has descended from heaven, that is a savior of humanity. I stand before you to tell you no, it is not ideologically. DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion is a derivative of identitarian ideologies that are part of a broader postmodernist cultural Marxism. DEI ideologically denies our founders beliefs that all member created equal. How? by dis deconstructing the values of our great constitutional republic with systemic racism and critical theory Marxist doctrine that people are entitled to specific uh by virtue of their gender identity that they are victims of oppression. That is an ideological lie. Thank you for your time. [Applause] Our next speaker is Edward Spears. Mr. Spears will be followed by Stephen Caddy. >> Not lost on me that we were in the dark until he finished. My name is >> Just a second. They need to recorrect your Thank you. Put his time at three minutes. Thank you, please. >> Thank you. Uh my name is Pastor Spears. I'm the president of the Pentecostal Ministers Union of Fort Worth and also a certified project manager. So I come to you with two views here. One, first talking about the idea that our members are very concerned. It is essential that we make all citizens have an opportunity and a chance to succeed. We know that sounds extremely simple, but we also know in practice it is definitely not. There have been systemic barriers put in place that have caused catastrophic disproportions in our society. So to fix them, you must have systemic solutions. Each of you are responsible for making sure that government works for everyone. And I know that is hard to do and sometimes you're going to have to take uncomfortable steps and be in uncomfortable places and make sacrifices that are not going to be enjoyable. But I have to ask you, we are facing an existential challenge to the soul of this country, to this state, and to this city. We must stand at times like this. As the word of God is always confirmed by two witnesses, it's already been said once, but it was already in my notes. understanding that Mark 8:36 says, "For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his soul?" What shall it profit the council if we gain federal dollars and lose Fort Worth's soul? I appreciate all the work that this council has done. I appreciate the hard work and the hard questions that you've put in place. all the work done inside and outside. But I ask you, if we're going to remove these protections, how will we ensure that the work continues? If we remove the language that came about because without the language, people were disenfranchised. How do we make sure it doesn't happen again? How do we make sure that these mandates, even in the new proposal that you have, how are you going to check those things operationally? How are you going to build the questions Dr. Dr. Hall asked earlier, how do we know that minorities aren't disproportionately affected by these changes? How do we know that out of the small business groups that it's still going to have the same number of participants? This is not something that simple. And I would challenge you at this moment. I know this is not popular and I know this is not easy, but you're not here to be popular or easy. Understand that there was another man in history that loved gold and he made a statue out of gold. And he said, "Anybody who wanted to be in my court had to bow down." But there were three people that did not bow down. And because they did not bow down, they had force that came that even when they were in the fire and they were bound, they were still able to succeed. I ask you now, don't bow. Stand and watch the Lord make a way. Thank you. >> Our next speaker is Steven Catty, followed by Benjamin Leesma. Thank you so much for your hard work. I appreciate it. I respectfully rise to speak against this resolution. Look, the loss of these funds and particularly of these jobs would be painful. Make no mistake, pulling back from diversity, equity, and inclusion also comes at a cost. While we like to think that cost is just born on the backs of people who don't look like me, the truth is the real damage of white supremacy is on people who do look like me. [Applause] That is we lose something. All of us lose something in this. Look, we can just pause for a moment to recognize we are in a really strange moment. And there are undoubtedly going to be cities and so-called blue states that push back against this and they are not going to be heard. For us to really make a difference, it's going to take cities that are courageous enough in red states to stand up and to say something about this moment. I can think of no better city positioned than Fort Worth, Texas. I pray that we might do something, that we might say something, that we might speak in to this moment, it will be painful. But I fear that unless we feel the pain of this moment, things will not change. And if in the end we can't vote to support or to support diversity, equity, inclusion, if we're not willing to join a lawsuit and perhaps we could at least at the very least recognize the pain of this moment and write an open letter. I know there would be plenty of people willing to sign on saying how much we resent being put in this position. Thank you. Our next speaker is Benjamin Desma, followed by Wesley Kirk. >> Good evening, Mayor and City Council. I uh have some words prepared here, but I had some off the cuff thoughts that I wanted to share uh that I was writing as I was listening intently. So, uh I wanted to share those first. So, first, this is my first city council meeting. I've never been here before. I don't know anybody here. It's a little nerve-wracking. Um, I'm really impressed by what I've heard from my fellow citizens. There are clearly a lot of really, really smart people in here and that gives me a lot of hope and I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who's already spoken and will be speaking. Um, second, maybe I'm a little naive, but um, I do see a council that's trying to do the best with the cards that they were unfortunately dealt by this administration. Uh I do appreciate the work that you have all put into trying and uh to find a solution to get us past this uh unfortunate circumstance. The third thing is I couldn't really help but notice that a lot of our discussion when talking about our solutions uh surrounded the um responding really quickly to this rapid change imposed by the executive order. Um, and I just wanted to ask, isn't that an effective acknowledgement that the executive order was intended to shake off what it views as economic freeloaders, like a dog shaking off ticks? It's kind of what it feels like to me. And I don't want you to signal to citizens that you view them the same way that the administration seems to view them. So, this is a little bit more prepared. Um, while I can acknowledge that the president's criticism of the effectiveness of DEI may have some validity, and don't get me wrong, I think that it's not effective enough, um, and while I appreciate that his executive order underscores, and I quote, that Americans deserve a government committed to serving every person with equal dignity and respect, end quote, I do think it's critical that we recognize the spirit of this executive order, namely, the president cynically and incorrectly mischaracterizes DEI programs as illegal, immoral, and discriminatory. Further, it recommends the replacement of those programs which are intended to foster strength and understanding in our communities with those that praise hyperindividualism. But people simply do not function individually. Even some of us even if some of us are able to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and form a real estate empire on a small poultry loan of $1 million. We all owe our successes in our life to our communities. Whether that's our parents, religious leaders, teachers, or just our friends. Therefore, I would like to urge the council to decline to comply with this executive order. And if that's not possible, I recommend that the council would comply in word, but not in spirit, retaining a commitment to bridging cultural gaps that will bring people of all colors, abilities, and identities together as one America. >> Our next speaker is Wesley Kirk, followed by Angela Hudson. We acknowledge that this is a difficult vote and that today you're being asked to make a hard choice. The work that city staff and the chambers have done in this past month is honorable, but it's purely a band-aid that ignores the festering wound of centuries of prejudice holding back minorities. We're not the only city in the country trying to figure this out. We can look at how other cities have responded to Trump's unconstitutional requests, like how Seattle filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for this very same reason. I need you all to think carefully, not just about the details of this resolution, but also of the signal that this vote will send. If you vote for this resolution, it will tell Trump and any pathetic bullies like him that Fort Worth will bow down to them and that we will sacrifice our morals and our values anytime they threaten to withhold money from our budget and that they can get away with any awful hateful thing they wish because Fort Worth is too scared to do the right thing. If you vote for this resolution, it will tell every single resident in our m majority minority city, everyone considering moving here or investing here that if they don't look like me, that they will not be welcome here. You'll be saying that their rights, freedoms, and opportunities don't matter here, that they won't be respected or protected. But if you vote against this resolution, think of the signal that will send. It will tell Trump, Abbott, and any other petty tyrant that Fort Worth is not afraid, that we will fight for our city and our residents. We will fight for local control. We will not be pushed around, live in fear, or led by hate. If you vote against this resolution, it will tell every black, brown, female, queer, trans, differentlyabled person in Fort Worth that they matter, that their rights won't be at risk, that Fort Worth is a safe, welcoming place for every person. If we give in today, think what we'll have to give up next time. If you make the wrong decision here, the effects will last years, if not decades. Trust is slowly earned and quickly lost. Do not lose the trust of this city. Vote against this resolution. Thank you. >> Our next speaker is Angela Hudson. Angela will be followed by David Griebble. Good evening, Mayor Parker, council members, and city mayor, city manager Choa. I'm Angela Hudson, and I'm here to urge you to suspend the city's DEI program to to protect the millions of of federal funding Fort Worth citizens rely on. By not passing the resolution, you risk the po possibility of losing hundreds of millions of dollars in additional federal funding. City mayor city manager tropa has said this is about legal compliance not politics. Losing this funding would harm essential services like police, fire and infrastructure. Please act now to protect Fort Worth and its citizens. Thank you. >> Our next speaker is David Griel. David here. David will be followed by Estella Williams. I'm Reverend David Greyel, pastor for the interim for CE at Celebration Community Church here in Fort Worth. Mayor Parker, members of the city council, citizens of Fort Worth, my comments were originally written as a prayer, but I offer them this evening as comments on this resolution. We gather in this chamber as an act of stewardship for our city and our community. Each of us plays a role, whether as members of the council, the city staff, or the residents of Fort Worth. For our stewardship is not limited to those seated before us. It is a sacred responsibility that is borne by all of us. Our stewardship extends to all people in the city, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, or gender expression, faith, tradition, or economic status. And we hold a special responsibility for those who are hungry, ill, unhoused, imprisoned, strangers and immigrants who are pushed to the edges of our community. It is given to us to ensure that all are fairly represented and carefully heard. This small business development program is a moral document. a moral document that should reflect the values of the prophets, who declared that justice should roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream, and who also declared that all who lift themselves up will be brought low, and those who make themselves low will be lifted up. May the choices you make tonight, lift the low and not the mighty. May the choices you make tonight create a place at the banquet table of opportunity in Fort Worth. Not for the rich and influential, but for all those who have never participated in the banquet. The scriptures teach us that where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are at the heart of the good news. They're at the heart of my faith. And tonight I pray that diversity, equity, and inclusion will be at the heart of your faith as well. [Applause] >> Estella Williams will be followed by Sarah Fairley Luna. Mayor Parker, council members, and other officials that are before me. I am Asella Williams. I'm president of the Fort Tarant County branch, NAACP. The presentation that was shared with us tonight was one that we received word that it was a collaborative effort amongst the council's of chambers. It provided information that perhaps might cause us to receive federal funds. However, I never heard things such as goals and actions, objectives that needed to be addressed. A question was asked by Dr. Hall. Accountability, evaluations, these things must be a part of any plan. It is most essential that plans of any kind address things that are most essential to a working body. It is critical that we address things so that we can know how we will evaluate what it is that is going to be done. My question would be what measurements will be implemented and who will be the ones who will monitor the things that will be done. Realizing that the civil rights department will still be in existence, I didn't hear any actions that related to civil rights or addressed ADA. Keep in mind, civil rights is not a responsibility that allows things just for a certain group, but it is a responsibility and it provides an opportunity for all citizens. It's not based on race, creed, or color. I would say to you it's not what a department is called or why it was named such that it was. The important objective is is the work being accomplished or things being looked at from the standpoint the actions the goals and the accountability. When I called to get on the list to speak, I was asked just three things. Are you for or are you against? Are you undecided? I would ask that of you. Do not allow yourself to be asked those questions. I would say to you, be decided. Be decided enough to know that there is an a department that have employees that were employed by the city of Fort Worth that's doing the work. They have been held accountable. They have made goals and actions a priority. The appreciation that we have for that department is that we can see the things that they have done. Let's do what's best for the community and maintain what you desired, Mayor Parker. A community that is not based on a name but based on partnership. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Sarah Fairley Luna followed by Andre Mcuing. I've had time to revise. Good evening, council. Thank you so much for the time that you've taken. I have so many friends in this room uh and actually on the dis. So, it's good to see you all. Um, I don't think I can add much more when it comes to content or context. You've heard from some amazing speakers tonight, and I fully had a speech prepared, but I'm going to go off cuff. Um, there's so much value in diversity, equity, inclusion, and I want to come to you as a resident of this city who's actually here tonight on a date night with my wife, and this is a terrible way to have a date night. Um, but we view this city as a city where we can grow with our family. We were here, I'm sure all of you remember receiving the Pride Proclamation in June. Our son couldn't be here. Um, our son has autism spectrum disorder and ID, so he also benefits from programs that support children with disabilities. When you put things like this in front of a community and you ask yourself, what are we going to lose if we vote to suspend a a unit that supports diversity, equity, and inclusion? You're forgetting to ask the question, what are we going to gain? And you're going to gain families like mine, kiddos like mine, community members like mine that want to stay here and want to dig deep and build roots and build businesses here. If you vote to suspend it, it's going to affirm that you value our silence and the bottom line of a budget more than our humanity. I'm a facilitator by nature and also uh a specialist in conflict transformation and peace buildingilding. And I would say we're in quite a bit of a conflict right now. So, um, I want to ask you to do something. I know you have pens. So, if you draw an XY axis, I want you to think about this. The concern of relationship, which is your community. This is diversity, equity, and inclusion in this room versus the current concern for task, which is passing a budget. And I know that's terribly important. Ask any nonprofit leader how important it is to pass a budget. But if your concern for task to ensure that you adhere to something that actually wasn't even asked of us yet, if your concern for task is greater than your concern for your relationship with your constituents, you are neglecting the folks that stand here and are demanding to be seen. And you're saying that we are only as valuable as the money you receive for us. Our next speaker is Andre Mchuwing. Mr. Mchuing willing be followed by Adrienne Smith. >> Good evening, Mayor Parker, city council, city manager Jay Chapa. Thank you. I bring with with me the spirit of Hazel Harvey Peace, D. Jennings, Irma Johnson Hadley, Dion Bagsby, Reby Kerry, Leonard Brisco, Alvin Langley, and Bobby Weber. Each of those individuals, if you don't know them, you need to know them. They were ambassadors of this county, of this city. They fought, they died on behalf of this city in support of diversity, equity, and inclusion. So, I would ask that if you don't know them, learn about them. Know who they are. I'm here about good trouble. I'm here about being courageous. and not being afraid of the political whack-a-ole going on in DC. This is Fort Worth, Texas. I'm a native of this city. 64 years. My parents live here. 90 years old still. I love this city. But right now, I've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. But I live love Fort Worth. City Manager Chopper, the word suspend. We've got to suspend that word. This isn't my suspension. We're courageous. We do it better than anybody. 11th largest city in this country. We know better. We take risk. We built this city on risk. From east, west, north, and south. Let's have risk. And I thank all the speakers tonight on behalf of this city. We can do better. I don't get distracted by DC. This is not about politics. This is about people's lives. This is about people's jobs. Workers who believe in Fort Worth, Texas. There are programs right now that haven't been suspended like DFW airport mayor as you know the small business enterprise concession. It's a program for small businesses, Tarant County College, Tarant County, JPS. We have programs all around us. So, I'm not sure why we delayed. City manager, the edict was done on January 2025. We're in August of 2025. Why did we delay? This is time sensitive. We've got to get down. We've got to do our job. Every day I wake up to make a better Fort Worth. And I know as I look at each of you who I know, Councilman Lord Dorf, I got opportunity to meet you. We can do better. We will do better. I know we will. So I ask you, be committed, be courageous, take risk, but let's not give in to the political whack-a-ole going on in DC. You all love this city. We love this city. Be there for us. Thank you. >> Our next speaker is Adrienne Smith. Mr. Smith here? If not, we'll move to Jonah Murray followed by Adam Gonzalez. I'm sorry, Adrian. Go ahead. >> I'm present. Adrienne Smith. I am one with the people. Executive Order 14173 dated January 21st, 2025 is the reason we are here. 40.6 million in federal grants annually is what we stand to lose should this resolution not pass. And I'm sure the council and the mayor know that I voted in favor of doing away with the diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives uh that we are presented with today. Earlier, I witnessed the Tarant County Commissioners uh court vote 4 to one to eliminate its Department of Human Services. This particular department mission was to provide social services and economic assistance to individuals and families. Financial assistance is provided to eligible households for rent, mortgage, utilities, hygien items and transportation on a limited basis. This program was this department was eliminated not because the individuals who served in the department were not doing their job effectively. It was all because this idea that they were leaving money on the table. Something that I'm sure was not in their control considering how this economy has been moving. Moving forward, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Each of you should give voice to this resolution item regardless of of where you stand on it. This is not a this is a policy issue. So, we should hear from each of you. We've heard from the people, but we've only heard from a hand handful of you. Each of you have a due diligence to tell us why you are for or against or why you're going to vote the way you're going to vote tonight. City staff, thank you for your presentation. Let's make it work. If we're going to if the votes are going to sustain to remove this important aspect of our city, make what? Make it work. Whatever you presented to us tonight, let's make it work. Make sure those dollars are spent how they should be spent. Let's make sure we have a great accountability for those dollars. to the collective voices in this room. Please don't stop coming. Please don't stop coming. I know this issue was is what got us here. Got a lot of you all here, but 333,626,188 is what this facility cost us. You all, so don't just come on the issue. Don't just come on the nights when it's just one of these hot button issues. We need you all here every week. >> Thank you. Our next speaker is Jonah Murray followed by Adam Gonzalez. >> Good evening everyone. My name is Jonah Murray. I'm a resident of District 9 and I wasn't sure that I was actually going to show up here tonight. Um, I'm going to speak against this resolution and in favor of diversity, equity, and inclusion because and tell you why I'm moving away from not just Fort Worth, but out of Texas. By the end of this month, I'm gone. And those reasons are because of things like this. Because here, I'm not well represented by my city, county, or state elected officials. and these officials, people who give in to bigots and tyrants and make it unbelievably difficult for people like me, queer people, trans people to live here, let alone thrive. I don't feel safe here. Community, our our community is in constant triage with this barrage of legislative attacks on our community from healthcare to library books and content in schools. Do you know what it's like to feel hunted? To feel hunted by people who wish you didn't exist? I'm moving to a sanctuary city who has actually stood up for transgender rights and other human rights. One of the first things I'm going to do is get a new driver's license because I don't know when Ken Paxton might decide to take my Texas driver's license away because he doesn't agree with my lifestyle. I'm pursuing a master's degree in public policy because I'm determined to help put systems in place that actually help people. I tried to do that here, but my efforts were not welcomed by many on this council. All I wanted to do was open a dialogue between city officials and the LGBTQ community. I wanted to institutionalize a place for our voices to be heard within our governmental system. until yesterday. I was a member of the Human Relations Commission. Yesterday was my last meeting. I'm disappointed but not surprised by you, Mayor Parker, when you put out or your statement your your office put out a a statement that said you didn't know about my intentions going on to the HRC when you and I had a face-to-face conversation about it and it was all over my application, which you approved. Thank you uh to uh Council Member Crane for your handwritten note to me uh a while back about the success of Finn's Place, but your words mean nothing to me when you don't back them up with actions. I just want it to be known that actions like these, your refusal to stand up for the values that your constituents hold is why businesses and individuals like me who would make this community better are leaving. and it's your loss. >> Our next speaker is Adam Gonzalez, followed by Gail Smith. Adam Gonzalez, Gail Smith, Gil Smith, America Mendes. Hello, my name is Gail and I'm here to speak in favor of the resolution to help ensure the future success of our great city. I'm a real estate agent who has the privilege has had the privilege of helping first-time home buyers again and again. And I want to tell you a story about a young single mom named Britney. She grew up in the Butler Place housing projects and uh that used to be downtown. Her grandmother also raised her mother there. Britney was strong was a strong woman who broke the cycle of raising her children in the projects. She was working full-time taking classes to get her masters in social work. She went through a program called HAP and received funds to close on her house at a at a protected price and it was sold to her $100,000 less than what it appraised for. I'm so proud that of what she accomplished. Not only was she a first-time home buyer, but she was the first in her family to own a home. I have no doubt the reason this dream was made a reality is because the HAP program. This has changed the trajectory of her and her children's lives. The home buyer assistance program is a blessing and a vital part of keeping Fort Worth the best place on earth to live. I pray that you have the courage to ensure programs like this continue to flourish. Regardless of my political leanings or yours, I honor each of you for serving the city that I love with all my heart. God bless you and God bless. Our next speaker is America Mendes. America will be followed by Jim Dong. My name is America. I was born and raised in Fort Worth. graduated from Trimbletech High School during the era in 2009 where parents from predominantly white schools such as Pasco school and Southwest pushed to end and limit text programs and change their admissions process to a lottery so that they wouldn't steal the best students. A school made up of black and brown students was blossoming. A rose in the concrete despite being underfunded and attacked. So no, it's not virtue signaling. It's not victim mentality. It's a lived experience. Ending diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in Fort Worth due to the threat of federal funding cuts from bully 47 feels like a b a blast from the past, but now it's impacting all of Fort Worth instead of just my former high school. Overall, white women have benefited disproportionately from corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. And now, Mayor Maddie Parker, you are deciding to remove them all together. Diversity, the practice or quantity quality of including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and different genders, sexual orientations, etc. Equity, fairness, and access to opportunities regardless of individual characteristics or background. Inclusion, providing equal access to opportunities and resources for people who might have otherwise been excluded or marginalized. Do you understand the greater message it will send to bend in removing DEI initiatives starting with small business? Black, queer, disabled, and people of color are not a photo op for your ongoing Instagram marketing campaign to gain votes and favor. We are human beings, not a corporation to decide where to enact cuts to better the business. Despite the ENI, many communities are still underserved. They still work. There's still work that needs to be done and that's why it shouldn't be cut. It should be built upon. I come from district 11 and as Fort Worth has grown, the district remains neglected despite the few sprinkles of gentrification that continue to displace and unhouse my neighbors as property taxes continue to soar while my street has the same potholes and lack of sidewalk from 1994. I understand this is for ending minority business incentive programs, but with your background in law school and government from UT and Texas Wesian, you should understand how everything will snowball to our schools and how some people will feel empowered to treat each other. This is setting a precedent and you have to pick a side. You have to stand up to 47. He couldn't even win fairly. He is weak. That's his way of winning, cheating. So, we have to fight back. Please fight back. Rules and laws are not equivalent to moral. And you know what's morally correct? Dei is cutting our f is not cutting our funds. Trump is. So, director anger proportion. Like, where is it supposed to go? It's not for the ENI. [Music] Our next speaker is Jim Dong. Jim will be followed by Randy Jordan. Good evening. I'm Jim Dong. Wow, what a night huh? It's quite something. As I've been listening, a couple of things have hit me. Number one, our city has been subsidized by the federal government for decades. You take a look at the federal funding that comes into our city, we would be insolvent if that funding wasn't given. And so if we want and this situation brings up that point, if we don't want to be dependent on the federal government, then I encourage you all to come up with a plan. It might be a five-year plan. It might be a 20-year plan to wean our city from federal government spending. That's part of the problem. We have someone in the federal government that said, "We're not going to give you x amount of dollars. Those dollars we don't uh deserve. I mean those dollars are we shouldn't expect those dollars and say if you don't give us those dollars dogone you we we are entitled to that money. We're not entitled to any federal money. And so that's one of the situations that we're facing here today. The other is I want to address DEI. You know, we use situational ethics with DEI for those who who really firmly believe in DEI. And there's that picture of three kids looking over a fence and they're standing on different heights of boxes so they can look over the fence. If we really truly believe in DEI, that should be involved in every sport team. You have a football team, there should be an Asian, there should be a Mexican, there should be and you know, it's ludicrous me saying this because in sports DEI doesn't work. Meritocracy works. If you're good, you get the position regardless of your race. And if you look at most pro football pro teams, there's more blacks on that team than whites. >> And so that's meritocracy. They worked hard. They're gifted. We should go after gifting and meritocracy more than trying to adjust the scales to make it even. Thank you. Our next speaker is Randy Jordan. Randy will be followed by Dr. Michael Bell. Okay, Mayor Council, um I'll start off with solving the problem this nation was founded on. If you love God and treat people like you want to be treated, all your problems will fall off because they don't have anything to hang on to. Self-help human programs don't work because they might change your actions, but they will not change your hearts. Getting over to DEI. I didn't know anything about it, so I said I'll look it up. I looked it up. This is what DEI says about DEI. Now, you laughed at Mark when he made the Marxist reference, but listen, more specifically, equity involves includes a focus on social disparities and allocating resources and decision makingaking authority to groups that have historically been disadvantaged. Well, if you do that, then you disadvantage the other group. There's a contradiction there. And by the way, don't believe me. Read this for yourself. Look it up. Don't believe anybody without looking it up. Inclusion. Creating an organizational culture that creates an experience where all employees feel their voices will be heard. Okay. Corporate. In short, whether diversity pays off or not depends on environmental factors indicating that DEI does not work. Film critic Norman White attacked the new standards as DEI standards as progressive fascism. Represent representative Adam Smith, ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, for instance, stated that DEI's efforts go off the beam in to my mind when they imply that racism, bigotry, and settler colonialism is the unique purview of white people. diversity training. A 2007 study of 829 companies over 31 years showed no positive effects in the average workplace from diversity training while the effect was negative where it was mandatory. A statement while free speech is a fundamental right it is not absolute little Marxist there. anti-semitism. According to the Brandage Center, the DEI committee of Stanford University said that Jews and victims of Jew hatred do not merit or necessitate the attention of DEI committee. You never met a con man that said, "I'm trying to con you." I encourage everyone here to look this up for yourself. The intentions are good, but somebody's throwing a con somewhere. Our next speaker is Dr. Michael Bell followed by Natalia Dominguez, Mayor and Council and City Manager Chopper. Um, honestly, I tore up my speech after EJ Carion and uh, Katherine Godsby, Dr. Katy, and almost everyone else has spoken against approving this resolution. It's amazing that we're even talking about this like this in a city that's majority minority. uh someone mentioned about uh big government and uh that we don't need big government and their shortsightedness when they mentioned that they forgot that the reason we're talking about this is big government has come in and said that uh if you don't do this uh then you won't get any money. I'm against the resolution. All but a few of tonight's speakers have articulated their objection. The city manager's office has done all that they that it could by way of uh presentation to put perfume on a pig. But when all is said and done, it's still a pig. The speakers have spoken and the question is will their concerns be ignored? Uh, will this council bend the knee to an emperor who has no clothes? Our next speaker is Natalia Dominguez, followed by Alexander Montalvo. Hello, mayor and city council members and city forward staff. I had a speech prepared, but after listening to a lot of the bigotry from our community, I wanted to make sure that I spoke upon that. My name is Natalia Dominguez. I'm from district 6 and I'm a proud Fort Worthian, a former award-winning public school art teacher and an MWBE equity advocate. Don't do good things that look bad and don't do bad things that look good. I'm here standing to ask you to not dismantle DEI. I wanted to share my personal story of how I was a elementary art teacher. And these attacks to DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion, they're not new to the city. They started with K through 12. And when they did that, everybody turned their heads away because it wasn't happening to them. My calling, which I thought was my calling, was to be an art teacher. And I was going to be a little old art teacher. They were going to have to drag my body out of the art room because that was my calling. But when the DEI attacks were happening K through 12 and I was reaching out because I was being discriminated, the DEI department was dismantled. They were sinking. That was intentional. Why would they want a highly educated merit-based teacher doing the good work of decolonizing the art room? They made sure to push us out. Therein came the great resignation and some will say it was co-driven. Yes, it was. But it was also the dismantling of DEI programs. It was also the attack on minority groups during CO. Those of you that are saying that we're acting like victims up here, these are our lived experience. And when you speak like that and when you say that you're colorblind or you say that we should be, you know, doing it on merit and you are being part of white supremacy [Applause] and the mayor at the time was going to the school district and asking the board to reopen the schools, but we weren't ready. So, what I did is I found out how the city works and I tried my best to make a difference. That's why I'm here today. I know you guys have already made your decisions. I don't want to be a token. I want to be part of the change. So, please listen to us and don't act like our alleys, but then stab us in the back. I ask you this from the bottom of my heart. Thank you, [Applause] >> Alexander Montalvo. All right, we've had quite a good amount of speakers tonight. Thanks everyone for being here, all those who are fighting the good fight. So, at this point, with so many great things being said by so many great community members, I need to focus on something that continues to bother me in the moment we find ourselves in, which is for the last 10 years, the Latino community has been dehumanized, has been targeted, vilified, and right now we have community members that are being hunted and kidnapped regardless of their status as citizen. And over the course of these 10 years, I've had to see time and time again of a weak Latino leadership that is supposed to represent us, fight for us, bend a knee to white supremacy, to the power that be that era needs to end now. And regardless of where your votes going to be Carlos or where your vote's going to be Janette, this acceptance of complicity with our black leaders time and time again has to end. I saw Elisa Simmons at the commissioner's court today fight once again against a fascist regime with O'Hare. And who's there? helping him. Manny Ramirez, I've seen you, Carlos, vote down $20 an hour to $18 an hour and also not vote for a citizens oversight committee with the police force. Well, now ICE has billions of more dollars and what kind of damage that going to do and what benefit would it give us to have a citizens oversight committee with what's going to come down the pike? saw you Janette just this last meeting in June vote against the interest of the Echo Heights community and bend a knee to FedEx and praise them for their sensors and their bird identifications while the community is poisoned by their exhaust systems from the amount of trucks they have in that community. And now Jay, I see your presentation from the city to help encourage the elimination of diversity equity inclusion versus fighting for this, investing in this, and working to solve the issue of white supremacy in our city and in our state. the era of weak Latino leadership comes to an end. You're either going to be the end of it or you're gonna show us you're gonna fight. >> Council, that's the council, that's the conclusion of our speakers this evening. Um, at this time, I'll open up for questions and comments from council members. If you'll just cue and I'll call on you. Thank you. Councelor Larstof. >> Yeah, I guess I'll go first. So, and thank you, Mayor. Um, I didn't prepare any speech. I just took notes so I can go back through and talk through some of them. At first, got to say pretty disappointed that you heard the word inclusion used so many times. Yet, when somebody gets up to speak and they have a different viewpoint, they were laughed at. Like, that's doesn't seem very inclusive to me. Yeah. Then I even heard somebody after listening to somebody who they disagreed with, they made fun of them and then you use Bible verses. Are you kidding me? Like the hypocrisy is not lost to me there either. Um I I'm glad the chambers came out to speak. I think they're going to do great work and they will continue to do great work. I'm looking forward to partnering with them and doing even more amazing work in Fort Worth. who I really wish would have came out to speak was those who have been who have benefited from those federal dollars. Um, and Gail mentioned a homeowner and what what she was able to help her do because of those federal dollars and federal grants. But what about those who've received rental assistance or those who have received home repairs? You know, it's 110 degrees out and they got an AC repaired because of the federal dollars that we received. I wish they would have came out here to speak about how important those programs were for them and what it did for them personally. uh for for those who are so adamantly you know against this uh you know I just ask if your mother faced eviction um would it really matter to you who signed that check because for me it certainly wouldn't matter I don't care if it was Biden Camala if it was Trump I don't care if it means my mother staying in her house I don't care who signs a check and whether you agree with that or not guess what I'm entitled to my opinion you're certainly entitled to yours um I heard um you know a lot about you know supporting the people and speaking up for the people and representing the people. Well, I can't think of a single person in District 4 that I represent that's going to be okay with a tax increase. In fact, that was one of the main things along with public safety that they mentioned was the most important thing is to keep the taxes as low as possible while not sacrificing our our public safety. And this could do exactly that, raise taxes and affect public safety. So, I'm certainly not going to go back to District 4 and say, "Hey, look, uh, hope you guys don't mind the the the exorbitant uh tax increase." and certainly going to be a lot more than 4 cents. We I think we all know that uh it's going to be a lot more than 4 cents. Taxpayers are certainly the voters are certainly not going to even approve that. So then it really does come down to what's going to go away and is it really is the juice worth the squeeze? I don't think it is in that case. Um and so you know, oh I heard somebody mention something about the uh the Marines and I'm glad that their son joined Marines. They hate everyone equally. So that's probably why they mentioned that. Um, all that to say, it's interesting. The other side that came out to speak against this, not a single person said, "Hey, I'm here because I support Trump or I support executive orders." It was every single one. It was regarding fiscal responsibility, which I thought was pretty interesting, too. And that certainly wasn't lost on me. And so, for to Adrian's point, yeah, I will absolutely speak out tonight. And of course, it seems as though I'm in the minority here, and that's completely fine, too. I I answered the the the the dis district D district 4 and the residents there and I will tell you my why um on why I'm going to support this as I'm certainly not going to leave here tonight doing cartwheels and I mentioned that last time we talk about mentors. My mentor and this is probably going to surprise a lot of people. My mentor is actually a Democrat, a very prominent Democrat. Why? Because I want to hear multiple viewpoints and actually really appreciate it. And I appreciate a lot of the viewpoints that were brought up here today. And I agree. I resent the position that we're being put in because I don't like local control being taken by anybody. Whether it's Trump, whether it's chats line, whether it's anybody in the state, federal, it doesn't matter. I don't want local control to be taken. However, I have a lot of reasons to support this. 277 million reasons or 100,000 speaking the residents in district 4. A lot of reasons to, but again, I'm not leaving doing doing any cartwheels. But what I will do after tonight is I will continue to work with the chambers and do everything I can to support the small businesses and ensure that everyone in Fort Worth has equal access to great programs and generational wealth. No matter what the color creed sex religion anything. But anyways, I'm going off on tangent. I'm tired. I think we all are. It's up here. >> Council Martinez, try it again. >> There you go. Okay. How about that? Okay. First and foremost, I do resent the fact that we are in this situation. As I've stated in the past, anyone that knows me knows that I'm an advocate for social services. We are in a cost of living crisis. And knowing that the county today voted to eliminate or outsource their social services program, I cannot with a good conscience vote against a resolution that will keep funding programs that support our most vulnerable or marginalized populations. So, this includes those that are disabled homeless low-income individuals. Denying funding for programs such as priority repair, the home investment partnership program, or emergency shelter would not only have an impact on the individuals served. Believe me when I say it will also contribute to an increase in our homeless population. Additionally, District 11 would lose critical infrastructure funding for projects that are already in process. I truly believe that the small businesses development program under the guidance of the chambers of commerce Fort Worth small businesses and stakeholders that they have developed and specified programs that will support our local small businesses and provide more opportunities that may have otherwise gone to businesses in surrounding municipalities. So, those are my comments. >> Council member Flores. >> Thank you, Mayor. And I want to thank everyone who's come and stayed at this uh long council meeting. You know, we heard you the first time we engaged on this topic. Uh I listened carefully. I think my colleagues have done the same. So listening tonight to our speakers, it is very clear to me that folks are upset and worried the effects of several other impactful issues at the federal, state, and local levels are compounding this. It's very clear. It was in several of the speaker's remarks. I understand it. But I want you to please understand we are not dismantling DEI. We're suspending it. And there is meaning behind those words. And understand this, too. Inaction will not insulate the city and her employees to federal lawsuits. Non-discrimination laws remain in place. The city consulted with an outside firm. And that suggestion came from the public and we acted on that. The Wellstead firm advised us. They continue to review and advise us on our DEI programs and how those services need to transform. To Miss Cardin's concern, if she's still here, yes, our legal team will continue to monitor changes at the federal level, including the progress of applicable lawsuits making their way through federal courts that could possibly arrive at the Supreme Court level. Miss Johnson, if you're still here, you're correct. Administrations do change and each administration brings its own set of EOS and they can amend federal grant requirements. However, I must correct you on one personal point. I don't live in the north side by design. I live there by choice. It's my home. Bottom line is this. City manager and staff are not being premature in recommending this action to ensure that the city has the ability to fund programs and deliver services to people because at the end of the day that's who it benefits. This protects our city employees from federal lawsuits because that is a real danger chambers. I appreciate their involvement, their action. I've spoken to them individually. They continue and have committed to working collaboratively with us and serve our small business community because there are needs there. Those needs need to be addressed. And again, I'll emphasize our legal team. We'll continue to be vigilant on the lawsuit front. Individually, we've asked questions of legal team. If there are any lawsuits that we can look into joining fact of the matter is right now, no. Nothing with the good possibility of success. So again, what we're considering tonight does have an impact to our budget, but please remember, Texas cities by state law have an obligation to deliver balanced budgets. So if we can't account for 277.1 million in total or annually 40.6 million, that's going to make it a lot harder for us to reach that and comply. Other major peer cities are watching what we're doing. Our neighbors to the east are watching. They've already begun some action, but they're waiting to see what we do. And yes, we have looked at peer cities, and a lot of them right now are in a holding pattern. Not sure where they're going to go. But Fort Worth has to find a way forward. And that's what we're doing tonight. I would not impose additional taxation. I said this before and I'm going to say it again. I think it's unfair to impose that on others. You can't just say that and not understand what that means. That's not fair. That's a burden. And over these past 10 years, in the time that I've served on council, we have made it a policy to work to find ways to lower our tax rate because Fort Worth does have still a high tax rate. We continue to be committed to that even despite the budgetary challenges that we have. So inaction will only impede our financial ability to do something. It's not going to get easier in year two or three or four. It's going to get harder. So we are taking action right now because inaction will just compound our problems. So, I join uh Council Member Martinez in keeping in mind what's important. Those programs that help people, those programs that assist us in housing, those programs that help our infrastructure, etc. Bottom line, folks, that's what we have to keep our eye on. And those are my comments. >> Council member Beck. >> Great. Thank you. Um, I'd like to start with a quote here. Hardworking Americans who deserve a shot at the American dream should not be stigmatized, demeaned, or shut out of opportunities because of their race or sex. And I want to read that one more time because I do feel like this is an incredibly powerful quote for me when working through this. Hardworking Americans who deserve a shot at the American dream should not be stigmatized, demeaned, or shut out of opportunities because of their race or their sex. And I'll give you, if anyone wants to take a guess at who wrote that quote, it was not MLK. It was not. I'll read the rest of the quote for you to give you a little more context about how important this particular quote is. Illegal DEI and DEIA policies not only violate the text and the spirit of our long-standing federal civil rights laws, but they also undermine our national unity as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful corrosive identitybased spoils system. Hard-working Americans who deserve a shot at the American dream should not be stigmatized, demeaned, or shut out of opportunities because of their race or sex. That quote that I read to you was not written by a civil rights leader or someone speaking out about the atrocities that we have seen in this nation over and over again when it comes to brown and black people. No, that language came directly from the executive order that we're being asked to ratify today. In that executive order, they compare DEI programs. And let me read to you real quickly the definition of of diversity, the condition of having or being composed of different elements. equity, fairness or justice in the way people are treated, inclusion, the act of including the state of being included. So what this executive order says today that the acts of being composed of different elements of being fair and just in the way people are treated and the act of including people are equivalent to longstanding corrosive racism. Now, I want you to all get in your car when you leave here tonight, and I want you to start on Rosedale, and I want you to go down to Forest Park, just right down here down the street. And I want you to point your car east, and I want you to drive down Rosedale till you get to 35. And when you get to 35, I want you to cross under that bridge and go from District 9 into District 8. That freeway is not the only dividing line in this city. Right where that freeway drove line lies today was a giant red line that up until 1968 was illegal. So just for y'all to the math there 57 years ago up until 57 years ago mortgage brokers bankers could say I'm not lending to you unless you live in this area. You are not white enough. you are not right enough to live in these specific areas. So to say that our DEI programs that are there to write the wrongs of our past, I want to give you some some dates here. 1776 is one we should all know, right? It's the founding of our nation. For the first 89 years, Deborah Peoples, Mia Hall, and Chris Nettle's ancestors were slaves. They worked for free in bondage, unable to control their own destinies. It took 104 years of this nation's existence for Chris Nettles to get the right to vote. It took 144 years for that vote to come to me and then even later to Mia Hall and Deborah Peoples. It took 192 years of this this nation's existence for us to have fair housing. It took 239 years of this nation's existence to legalize same-sex marriage. Hardworking Americans deserve a shot at the American dream. I cannot think of anything more American than getting married and owning your home. And up until 2015 and before that, 57 years before that, a black gay couple was limited to where they could buy a home in this city. Their American dream was not actualized. If you were here last time when we talked about this, you heard me give the example of the Fort Worth Club and about the Fort Worth Club is an example of institutions that people are members of that others can't join. Maybe it's because we didn't have laws that said they could join them or they didn't have the means to to pay the the membership price, but it's the halls where business gets done. and creating these DEI programs help us rectify the literal hundreds of years that people were oppressed artificially. So this DEI program does in fact create an artificial imbalance. But that artificial imbalance isn't there to give people a step up. It's not to let them get ahead or be better than you. It's to equalize the playing field. And that's what we're talking about here. I love this city. I love serving on this council. I am proud of the work that every one of us here on this das do. We come every Tuesday and for most of us, every Wednesday, every Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, we're here eight days a week working to make this city great. And one thing I know about the city of Fort Worth is that we can do hard things. This is a hard thing. So, tonight you've heard some of my colleagues try to to to give you an all or nothing proposition. We either vote on this resolution and get rid of these programs or we don't. There's nothing that says that we as a community can't do hard things, that we cannot sit down and we cannot grapple with you to prioritize your budget. The city of Fort Worth, the people of Fort Worth did not vote to take away DEI. They didn't vote for it today. They didn't vote for it back in November. The city of Fort Worth didn't vote for this. And it's our job to make sure that we do right by the city of Fort Worth. We can do hard things and we can do them together and we do them tonight by saying we will not bow to bullies. This is without question the hardest vote that I've ever had to take on this council. For those of that serve with me know once I get to a yes or a no, that's where I stand. But one thing my therapist says to me that I carry with me every day is that you have to stand look in the mirror and be able to stand yourself. The city of for looked in the mirror back when we did the race and culture task force and we could not stand ourselves. So we got to work of making it right. 2020 city of Fort Worth is looking at us. They're pretty ashamed right now because they knew we could do hard things and I know that we could do hard things and it's why I will not be supporting this resolution this evening. >> Council member Hill. Um well, first of all, I want to thank city staff and attorneys for working on the resolution and the creation of the small business program. Um, we're ensuring that we are saving $277 million in grants to fund essential city services like fire protection trash cleanup environmental services, and road construction. And not to mention, we're saving 120 jobs. No one has mentioned that this evening. 120 jobs at the city that would be lost without this. And I want to make something very clear. The vote tonight for me has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with citizens like you that came out tonight. and to be fiscally responsible. Fort Worth is the greatest big city in America because we put our constituents first and we prioritize services that benefit every corner, every district, every person of this city. Politicizing of tonight's vote is a disservice to every family that lives in this city. And frankly, I'm sick of the nonsense and our city deserves better. Moving forward, I expect our city manager and I challenge you, Mr. Shaba and staff to ensure that we continue to make decisions that help every person represented here tonight that spoke that came out and took time out of their evening and away from their families. And I call on each and every one of my colleagues to do the same. There is a reason why families moved to Fort Worth. They call it home. And we need to remember why we were elected and why we're here. And I ask us all all of us on the dis to respectfully come together, quit the grandstanding and the nonsense and get back to work for the people that depend on us. Thank you. Council member Peoples. >> So, first let me start by thanking Christina Dana Michelle Erica and Steve for taking what we said in June very seriously. I know you worked very, very hard on coming up with a potential replacement uh to our problems and that you did not create. And so please know that my remarks are not aimed at you or the exemplary work that you have done. But I'm going to stay I had written seven pages of uh remarks and then as I sat here and listened to all the beautiful comments that were made tonight and I started thinking about the fact that we live in a democracy. I started thinking about the fact that democracy as a form of government doesn't have a guaranteed lifespan. It doesn't. Many democracies around the world have failed. And I sat here and thought, I want to continue to live in a democracy. And so I went and looked up a quote that Reverend Ryan Price of Broadway Baptist said today. And what Reverend Price said is that people in positions of power are going to have to stop empowering liars and start standing up for truth, justice, and the American way or we're going to lose a lot more than jobs and government funding. We're going to lose this country. And I sat here and I so mine is going to be short and sweet because I sat here and thought and then I remembered the words of all of you brothers of Alpha by Alpha of a famous member of Alpha, Bertner Woodson Tandy, who says we must fight till hell freezes over and then we must learn to fight on the ice. And so because I believe in democracy and I am willing to fight on the ice, I must vote no on this resolution. >> Council member Crane. >> Thanks, Mayor. Um I'm going to speak. I'm tired and I know that my remarks will not be as eloquent as Councilwoman Beck and I'm sincere that those were some eloquent remarks. Um, I'm often asked about this job, uh, of what it's like to do the job. And there are high highs and low lows. And this morning, mayor and I cut the ribbon on the LBT, the health center there, JPS Cook Children's Health Center, and it was a high high. And now we sit here in what I think is a low low in a position that I don't think any of us really want to be dealing with, but here's where we are. Um Jonah, I want to address you since you addressed me. I know it was sincere. Um I'm sorry you haven't found a place here in Fort Worth and I do hope that you find peace wherever you're going. I'm sincere about that, too. Um it's been stated that if I had done my job in June, we wouldn't be sitting here tonight. And what I'll say is that sometimes good government is an expedient government. Um, sometimes you have to listen. And I've many of you I've talked to you over the last week and the last few days. Thank you for signing up. Thank you for being here. What I've heard tonight is this about people's lives. And what I know is that uh real people are going to be affected no matter what we do today. uh whether that's voting up or down uh to suspend our DEI, our diversity and inclusion department. Uh if we whatever the vote is, we'll either get the funds or won't get the funds, etc. What I'll say to this is that I'm proud of the work that's been done over the last month, uh which was the charge that this council gave to city management to come back with something and not try and rush a decision. And I want to commend y'all for spending July working with the chambers. The full list if it's not public, people can see of who you've talked to. When we were briefed about this program, the small business program, something that I've advocated and helped over the last four or five years, um I'm I'm proud of the work that everybody's put into this. I won't belabor this tonight and I'll say this. I am going to support the initiative uh because I think it'd be fiscally irresponsible not to take the funds from the federal government. And I do believe that we can continue to work together, as has been stated, to find solutions and continue to inver invest in our our um our programs that promote opportunities for everyone. And I'm sincere about that, too. The other thing I'll I'll just end with this because we live in some silly times. Uh Mayor Pro Tim Flores and I the other night attended the Air Power Foundation and Mo Brings Plenty, you may know him, he's an actor. um Chalkaw, full Chalkaw gave a really good remarks and and something he said he said this he said we better figure out a way to help each other out. We're family and we're a human race. So what I'll say to that is that's what I'm committed to. I know this council is committed to the staff is committed to whatever happens tonight will continue to forge forward and make Fort Worth a great place to live. Thank you. Council Block. >> First, I want to thank everybody that came out to speak tonight. Seriously, uh, a lot of passion in the room. It's much appreciated. It's important to come and make your voices heard. So, thank you all. I want to thank staff for putting together a great presentation, doing a lot of hard work in a very short time to get us to a place where we can navigate the issue that we have right now with our federal grants. Uh I won't belabor the point. I won't repeat uh what's already been said, but this is clearly an issue of fiscal responsibility for our city and I will be supporting resolution for that reason. I will echo council member Crane's comments. I am highly confident regardless of how these votes go that every member of this council will work hard to ensure there is opportunity for our residents. So that's my remarks. Thank you. >> Thank you. Council member Bl. >> Council member Hall, >> is your light on by chance? >> Okay. Thank you. Um, so I do have prepared remarks tonight because I knew that this was going to be an emotional vote um, for me and um, I don't know. I'm going to keep leaning into um, me being new, but I have to admit, just plainly stated, I'm going go off script. I am so disappointed. Um, it's difficult. Now I'm back on script. Um, it's difficult to grasp that we've reached a point where the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion have become so contentious that nearly $300 million in critical funding is now at risk. Let me be clear, I will not be voting for the suspension of DEI. Tonight, I will formally vote against the resolution suspending the application and enforcement of certain ordinances and resolutions as required to ensure the continued receipt of federal funding. For those of you who don't know, my prior job, previous job, I was an equity executive for the For Independent School District. I was a part of that division that was dismantled when um federal attack um kind of sieged into our public school systems. But I want you to know that diversity, equity, and inclusion is not a slogan and it is not a catchphrase. It's an intentional framework guiding our policies to ensure that public services, hiring, procurement, and community investments serve all Fort Worth residents equally. In practice, DEI programming has expanded opportunities for minority and womenowned businesses. It's improved access to capital certification processes and government contracting. And it strengthened the enforcement of civil rights protections in housing, employment, and public accommodations. And the list goes on. This governing ballot body, this council has a responsibility not only to protect the city's financial interests, but to uphold the principles that define who we are. This resolution sends a very dangerous message that Fort Worth is willing to compromise its values in exchange for funding. Many of my colleagues failed to address the concerns that were explicitly stated nearly 70 times tonight. And all the comments I've heard so far have been about money. And I understand very clearly what's at stake. Nearly $300 million in critical funding that supports our city's core services. But I also understand what's at stake if we comply without scrutiny. Our right to self-govern, our moral clarity, and the trust of the very communities that have fought for equity, inclusion, and inclusion in this city. We cannot afford to surrender local control. And I'm going to say that again because that's everything that we all talk about. And I think that's something that crosses the aisle. We cannot afford to surrender local control in this way because once you accept that values become negotiable and the line becomes harder and harder to draw and what begins as a financial decision quickly becomes a political one. And what we lose in that exchange isn't just a policy. We are talking about our identity. And to those who may believe that this is just a matter of optics, I want to be clear. Our decision this evening will not will I'm sorry. Our decision this evening will establish precedent and power. And what we model tonight will shape the future of how and for whom we govern. And no matter the outcome of tonight's vote, I will continue to advocate for equitable access, bold investments in underserved communities, and measurable accountability across city systems. And I absolutely will not tonight nor ever support any policy that makes those goals contingent upon the removal of equity itself. And y'all, I have to just say onscript, offscript, whatever, I in my heart believed that Fort Worth had come so far. And I still want to believe that we have come too far to fold under pressure. And I had hoped desperately that our values, what we profess, what we the slogans we say, the things that we do that they weren't for sale. And I'm disappointed. I council member Nettles. Thank you. I have what I would like to call our scatter remarks. So, I will go back and forth. Uh, first I want to tell you I'm not tired. Um, I had a month off and so uh I spent it doing some study and spending time with the kids and so I signed up to be here at 11 o'clock at night to deal with certain issues and um we will not be moved. And so I want to tell you first I want to thank the overwhelming residents who came out today to speak against not ending DEI diversity inclusion equity and even the ones who came to speak against dismantling diversity equity inclusion. But as you can see tonight, the numbers of those who want to demand uh to suspend it were completely outnumbered by those who want to keep it. [Applause] And I want to remind you that President LBJ established this for a reason, to give others an opportunity and a chance at freedom. an opportunity and chance as being inclusive, an opportunity and a chance of being a part. We heard from Jeff Postel's son, Jeff Postel the third that talked about had it not been for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Their forum would not be as established as it is today. It is because of these practices and these policies. But we sit on this council today and we talk about, oh, we got a black firm that can do stuff, Jeff Post, but let's talk about how he got there. So the next Jeff can do it. The next Corman can be that. But instead, we sit here and we say that we don't see color. Well, I don't know if you are blind or not, but I see color. I am not color blind. And color means something. And the reason why color is so important is the reason why this executive order is trying to draw us away from the importance of clo color and being inclusive. Today I am voting with my conviction. I woke up this morning thinking about what I should wear and I looked at suits and ties. I looked at that pretty molly pin that most of my council have on their shoulders tonight. But my conviction was not a molly pin. My conviction was not a representation of the city as it stands. But my conviction was a representation of my people, of where I come from, my ancestors who fought for the right to vote, who fought for the right to be a part of the system. And so I chose to wear what you see on today, which was made in the bread and the butter, the sweat and the tears of my ancestors to make a living, to live each and every day. I chose to wear this because I wanted to be a representation of how my conviction is today. When David Cook took office as the city manager, he was faced with a pinching of issues with a failing budget. Today, in this office, Jay, you are faced with bullying and racism policy. How are we going to govern? It wasn't easy then and it's not going to be easy now. But we have to push through every single circumstances. I was the one we all of these people up here is touting how the work did with the small business. Half of the spoke the folks that spoke tonight didn't speak on June 24th. Let me remind you and they want to talk about the small businesses. It was this brown voice here saying, "I wanted to make sure that we do not lose our small businesses, that we do not lose the 15% incentives, that we do not lose the equity and and and our small firms." I was the one speaking of those. So, I appreciate you, those who speaking tonight, applauding the work that the city did, but and I appreciate Jay going back to the drawing board and bringing those to pass at some point. Miss, I think it was AIM uh super or what? Aim super how you talked about I looked at straight face and talk about raising taxes. I'm going to say it again. At some point this city is going to have to grapple with raising taxes. We are the fastest growing city, the 11 largest city. People are moving here at a rapid speed, but we continue to lower the tax rate. That's good on one end, but what happens on the other end? Roads are not fixed. There are road conjunctions. Uh people are not being taken care of. We cannot provide the services. We don't have police uh uh departments or police stations in areas that we need. We don't have enough fire stations in North Fort Worth. So, we can keep lowering the taxes and for a political game, but when are we going to actually support the people of Fort Worth and put our money where our mouth is? So, at some point, at some point, we're going to have to raise those taxes. And I don't see a issue with we're talking about losing jobs. 120 jobs. And nobody here is is advocating for losing jobs. But I know where we are going to lose diversity, inclusion, equity, jobs of five. Is anybody concerned about that? I know Jay said we're going to replace them and put them in other positions, but where are they going to be comfortable in those position that they want to be in? Do they have a choice of where they going to go? Have we discussed that? I don't think we really have. To my colleagues who are battling decisions having to make before this community establishing diversity, equity, inclusion from a race and culture task force. They also told us that they need to create a minority seat. Do y'all remember that? When we went through the redistricting, we went to the community and they said, "We want y'all to create another minority seat." Well, they just didn't say create another minority seat, Councilman Flores. They said create a Latino Hispanic seat. And I tell you, I fought Dr. Williams. I fought Council Member Moon and others to make sure that not only we created a Latino Hispanic seat, but we also saved black seats. And I'll be done, Joe, if the same folks that we work so hard to get you on this diet that you fold under the pressure. [Applause] I don't have to imagine what Ramon Romero would do. I don't have to imagine what Terry Masa would do. I know what they are doing. You know what they're doing right now? They're not just fighting, but they're putting their seat on the line. They're putting their ability to be arrested on the line. You know why? Because they believe in values. They believe in morals. And They believe in not giving up for the people. So I am completely astonished and blown out of my mind that I am sitting on this DAS with people who are of my same culture who have not had the same rights that I have hadn't bending at the knee of a racist facic and I mean ugly man in Washington be seen. I'm even concerned and upset with the fact the work that Commissioner Brooks put in for two decades and to have two people from his office to vote against DEI and human services in the same damn day. My stomach is turned. And when we talk about the executive order, we're talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Let me read you a half a paragraph real quick, and I'm almost done. And those of you that are ministers, this is the first close. In addition, your legal obligation requires corporation generally with federal authorities in the enforcement of federal law, including cooperating with not impeding the US immigration and custom enforcement, other words, ICE, and other federal offices to the component of Department of Homeland Security and the enforcement of federal immigration laws. For those of you that might not understand what that mean is that this executive order is also telling us that we must allow ICE to come in and do what they have been doing in other cities. And I don't know if y'all are also comfortable with that, but read it and talk to Lyn about it, but I'll just put it out there. This order has more stipulations in it than just diversity, equity, and inclusion. It's going to really hurt and harm cities of color, black and brown cities. Months ago, Taran County midcycle redistition stole the people's seat with an unfair redisting process. Yesterday, the state ledge also conducted a mid decade redistitioning to steal five people's seats. And when I say people, the people of our city. Today, human services was taken at the county level. And today, we are forced with suspending diversity, equity, and inclusion. What is tomorrow? Well, let me tell you. I'm glad you asked. Neighborhood services, CDBGC, and any other programs that is cited to help people of color or poor people though, they're going to come out of those programs. And this vote is not just about the $40 million. It's not just about the 270 multi-year dollars, but it's about can we actually do what we need to do. The le the 11 largest cities should not be dependent on federal dollars. I know we've been doing it, but at some point we got to figure out how we can be self-sufficient. I asked the question about us having extra money at the end of the budget cycle. We have those dollars. We can move things around. We Jay have already asked uh different departments to take a 1% cut. There are ways that we can get to this number. It's not apples and oranges. It's not 1 + 1. It's not 3 minus 2. But it's sitting down and figuring out how we can support all people. And I thought that when Mayor Price say all means all, that meant all. [Applause] I'm almost done. >> We have a choice. Councilwoman uh H I mean Councilwoman uh Macy Hill. >> Uh we have a we have a choice. And I know you sat here and you kind of talked about you sick of this, you sick of that. I'm sick a lot of stuff, too. We have choices. We can raise the taxes and support our staff. Not for not four cents, but we can raise it to a reasonable amount. Not just to support staff, but also to support our infrastructure. We can ask each department to take a 1% cut to come up with some of the dollars. We also can sue the administration. We can become a more self-sufficient city. We can stand up. We can fight. We can support our residents. We can uphold our core values because right is right even when nobody do it. And wrong is wrong even when everybody is doing it. And so ending diversity, equity, inclusion is wrong. And I don't just represent district 8. And by I might add, it was 70% that I won that district. So when y'all look for somebody, get someone better than the young lady that spoke earlier to run. Miss Super, we can support and not end diversity and inclusion. If you don't know by now, I am not going to support. I appreciate the work you've done, Michelle. I appreciate the work the Hispanic Chamber has done. I I appreciate Steve coming on board and stepping in for the Fort Worth Chamber to say, "Listen, we're a part of this. This has never happened before, the three chambers working together because we're in a different day and time." That means if we can do that, we can do more things. We can save diversity, equity, and inclusion. And we also can establish a small business firm. And we also can support all people. and we also can keep making sure our dollars are taken care uh the right way. And so today, I'm voting not to end diversity, equity, inclusion, and I'm going to stand on my core values. >> Council member Martinez, try one more time, Janette. Just a second. There you go. >> Hello. Okay. So, for those that don't know, um, Councilman Nettles, you know, called me out and so, uh, I wish to respond to that, Chris. Um, so I just want to make my position clear. I choose to fight for our poor. I choose to fight for those that live paycheck to paycheck who without this assistance would otherwise be homeless eventually. So I I you know I don't expect you to understand where I'm coming from, but I come from a place where I have had to depend on public assistance. And so this is where I am at. I respect your position and I ask that you respect mine. >> Council member uh Hall. >> Yes. I you know tonight we have thrown around two figures um and it sounds so ominous. We've talked about 277 million. We've talked about 47 million. Um we've talked about um the right we don't have um to raise taxes or put a burden on the the taxpayers of our city. The one figure that we have not discussed is what would that burden look like um and what that actually looks what what that number is. So what does our identity and soul actually cost a taxpayer? I'm a taxpayer. So I'm curious to know. So when we say 4 cents, um, and this is just hypothetical in this example because that's a hypothetical number as well. 4 cents would be what the we we take my home value, we divide it by 100, we multiply it by 4 cents. Is that about right? >> Okay. So, on average, a $300,000 house, which that would be a bargain, but a $300,000 house divided by 100, that's like a 3,000 multiplied by 4 cents. I think that's like $120. Is that $120? How much? How much is this? >> $120. Am I doing the math right in my head? Okay. I'm not a math teacher. I was social studies. Okay. So $120 annually, $10 a month is how much my values, my soul, my identity, what we stand for. $10 a month. And I also want to lean into the fact that we talk about democracy and we talk about voice and I've been a zoning commissioner and I've had people vote against me because we didn't have enough people in the room to support my beliefs for what I thought was best for my district. But yet we're sitting in a room where 70 people signed up and almost I would say 90% of the people and if not 90 really close to it came in here and said what they believed and what they stood for and yet we're going to ignore it. And then there's this presupposition that the people that are here didn't receive some type of public assistance, doesn't don't aren't familiar with public assistance, um that they aren't okay with paying taxes, that they're not from your district. Those are presuppositions and that is almost entitlement in itself that you believe that the people sitting in this room don't have a lived experience and are able to testify on how they feel about this decision. And so I would be remissed if I did not emphasize and lift up that we have heard the will of the people and to discount their experience and assume that they are a certain class or have had certain that they're just somehow anomalies is sticking your head in the sand and looking for the outcome that you seek. Council member Peoples, >> I'm I'm going to try to keep my remarks short. You all know Dave can tell you I've been quiet all day because I knew how this was going to go down because if you go back and look at my comments at our June the 24th meeting, I said if we capitulate now to this administration, they're going to come back and ask us to give up more and more and more and pretty soon we're going to lose any kind of control. And so I I can point, you know, I love how everybody tonight says, "Oh, I'm voting for the people in the district and the poor people and all that." This president just passed his big, beautiful bill where children, the elderly, the disabled are already losing these benefits that we say we're voting tonight to protect. So, I realize what's at stake here, but I believe that if we sit here tonight and pass this ordinance, we are not taking into consideration what's at stake for the millions of Americans, but more importantly, the thousands of Fort Worthians who are going to be negatively affected by this power grab. have so we can dress it up. I love what you said, uh, Rem Bell. You from the country like me. My mama said you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. I just think we need to realize tonight that if we vote to suspend DEI, we're putting lipstick on a pig. >> Council Reettles. >> Yes. Thank you, Mayor. And I just want to uh just reaffirm uh Council uh Woman Martinez. I did uh call you out on that and I appreciate you articulating your stance and let me be clear again that I think that Councilwoman Beck also talked about that this is not a eitheror and I think the fact that you guys still think that it's a eitheror is still up I don't understand why we're not getting it. we can do something different with finding funds to make sure we don't get rid of those programs to hurt poor people. And I would like to tell you a little bit about my story. I come from a single mother that raised me. We lived in Butler Housing Projects, the projects that's right across I35. We lived in Pigham Valley, the dirty nasty roaching pressed uh project that's off of uh Riverside and uh East Roberts. uh she worked at day and at night to put me to make sure I had a a place to live and stay. Um we also live with my grandmother at sometime. And so when you talk about you understand what being poor is, I too understand what being poor is. And I work hard every single day that my four children do not experience what I experienced as a child. And today I live in a $450,000 home. Not because I was given a a gold spoon or a silver spoon. It's because I worked my ass off to get what I have. And so I'm not speaking on my behalf because I don't need DEI to support me, but I need DEI to support those who have not got where I am today. Um, I am going to speak a few things, but then I know we need have some clarifying things we need to do from council. Jay will actually need to make sure we read into record the changes of the resolution. And just for clarity for those here tonight, because we continued the case in June and there have been changes to the original resolution as proposed for council. That's the thing, including the small business ordinance that was discussed tonight. That has to be discussed. I'm gonna have Jay do that first. Um, and then I'm gonna ask Leanne a few questions. Try it again, Jay. Sorry. So we need to remove or remove the original resolution from June and replace it that that was 25-5257 and replace it with 25-5258 that includes the creation of the small business development program along with a susp suspension uh the application and enforcement of certain ordinances and resolutions to ensure the continued receipt of federal funding and by adopting an ordinance amending in chapter 21 of the city code to establish a small business program for procurement of goods, services, and construction. >> Thank you, Jay. And then specifically for council Nettles or any other council member, at one point this afternoon, I think there was some discussion maybe alternative motion. I'm going to ask Chris to speak to that first and then I'll have Leanne clarify. >> Try Chris. There you go. >> I think you're talking about uh the first motion which is to split the two votes. >> Yes. If that was your intention. >> Yes. So tonight I want to uh because the city of forward did a lot of work with the small business and so we don't want to just not support what they have done in that and having into one resolution. Uh so to I wanted to move to split these two items that we have in separate votes. One on the suspension of resolution and the other on the small business ordinance. >> Okay. Thank you. And so clarifying he's offering alternative motion. What does that mean procedurally for us? plan. Yeah. >> Okay. So, uh that means that you all will need to vote on the motion that he he has just made which is to basically create two votes. So, the very first vote that you're going to take is whether or not you agree to take my microphone is cut now. >> Can you hear it? Can you hear me? >> So, after the motion is made, so which he's done. You're going to vote on whether you want the item to be split into two votes. If that vote passes, the mayor is then going to call each item separately, which is first the resolution about the suspension, which would also need a motion and a vote, and then the ordinance about the small business program, which would also need a motion and a vote. So, essentially three votes with this motion. >> Okay. Okay, I've got a I've got a second from Council Member Hall on Chris's motion, which as a reminder would just be to split the two um in front of us this evening. Council member Crane, >> point of clarification, do we not have to rescend 255257 like Jay said? >> Okay, you did. Okay, >> I think that was sufficient, but good question. Yes. Okay. Um so, we've got a motion on the floor that's just on the motion whether or not um council would approve to split those two votes. Let's do that first. I've got a motion by Council Member Nettles and a second by Council Member Hall. Um, at this point, please vote. Okay, motion carries to split the vote. Um, so just for clarification, is there any specific language you want me to read or I'm going to wing it and you can tell me I've done it incorrectly? Okay, that sounds great. Um, before I do that, I'm just going to say a few things very briefly. I'm going to point to some reality, paint you a picture here. Um, and the reality is is our city is facing this as is every other city in the country. And I would note, by the way, that the city of Portland and their mayor actually did the exact same thing today um to adhere to federal executive orders along with the Supreme Court case that's applicable here specifically in the Fort Worth district. Um, there is very clear direction. In addition, and we have not spent a lot of time on this this evening, but it was articulated clearly in executive sessions and former sessions that in addition to the executive orders, very clearly the DOJ has made it clear and then again on July 29th that they would utilize the False Claims Act would be exercised specifically against any individual both criminally and civily um that had any impact to what's been articulated tonight. So, what would that mean? So, if these resolutions do not pass tonight, um, and we don't reverse course and adhere to federal executive orders and also the subsequent Supreme Court case that now has been applied here in Fort Worth, effective immediately, um, our city management team and the city attorney's office would make clear to city staff, you will not certify nor reertify any federal grants in the city of Fort Worth moving forward because it would not be something our city would allow to subject our employees to criminal or civil liability. I've picked a few of these federal grant programs that would be very clearly taken away from the city of Fort Worth. The East Lancaster redevelopment, $20 million, Horn Street reconstruction, Heritage Park reconstruction, University Drive from Trail Drive to to Rosedale. Let's move into public safety grants. A 2024 Homeland Security Grant for police and fire items for $3 million. CDBG disaster recovery grant 27.4 million. First responder mental health, $95,000. The DOJ sexual assault kit positions and outsource position over almost $700,000. Not to mention the $20 million that's on the chopping block for vote for our next week that includes funding for early child education, including Head Start and Early Head Start, the home buyer assistance program and housing opportunity for persons with AIDS. No grants would move forward because they would subject staff again to persecute to prosecution under the False Claims Act. Additionally, as already been mentioned, we have not spent a lot of time on it. It is not just executive orders we are facing. It is also Supreme Court precedent that's now been applied in the the Fort Worth District Court. And by the way, in that particular NewsArt case, there has been no appeal filed here in the city of Fort Worth. This is not a ceremonial vote. It is not a time to signal. This is real impact to the citizens of Fort Worth. I took an oath of office and pledged to adhere to the US Constitution on behalf of the citizens of this city. I am the chair of the board of one of the most well-run managed cities in the entire nation. The fastest growing city in the country with over 1 million residents. One million residents. And while I am so proud that we've had over 90 people come here tonight to speak or submit comment cards, there are 1 million people that this DAS has to be responsible for. Someone tonight mentioned lifting the low and not the mighty. The very people we are all concerned about protecting are the very first to be impacted by these grants and federal grants across the city of Fort Worth. Let me be clear. It's not 4 cents, ladies and gentlemen. It's not 19 cents. It's insurmountable for the city of Fort Worth. Our taxpayers, our budget cannot sustain it. And oh, by the way, we have a revenue cap in Texas that may go from 3.5 to 2.5 before you have to go to voters. So all you could probably do is get to 3.5 before you put it before voters. And the last time I checked, the number one issue in Texas right now is affordability. I can guarantee you that referendum will be voted no. And we'll be right back in this same position tonight. To my council colleagues, thank you for the time you spend on this DAS. You all signed up to do this job and you do it well and sometimes it can be thankless. But like Chris, I'm not tired either. I've been your mayor for four years. And while this is a consequential vote, this is not the time to virtue signal. This is not the time to to to negate the fact that our city staff has put hours of effort. I know I know in my heart and for a fact, city management, by the way, you're looking at the gentleman to my right that helped create the MWB program in the city of Fort Worth, who believes in it with his entire heart to make it successful. And to my left, Leanne and her entire amazing legal team. And by the way, additional outside counsel telling us this is the decision we had to make. I also am an attorney here in the state of Texas. And I believe it will be it would be legal malpractice for me to vote differently. So tonight, what we're going to do is vote twice. You now have a vote in front of you to vote on the original ordinance or resolution. So I'm going to be clear. The first is the resolution that pertains to suspending the application and enforcement of certain ordinances and revising resolutions as required to ensure continued receipt of federal funding. That will be one vote. And then the second vote would be to support the creation and ordinance amending chapter 21 of the code of the city of Fort Worth as amended to establish a small business program for procurement of goods, services, and construction. Those will be our two votes. So, at this time, I can entertain a motion on a resolution suspending application enforcement of certain ordinances and reviving resolutions as required to ensure continued receipt of federal funding. Got a motion by Council Larsdorf and a second by Council Member Hill. I'll get to a question just a second. Let me hit my button here. Sorry. Council Nettles. >> Um, yes. I have an alternative motion for um the motion that was just passed. I mean approve whatever you I move and I have you again don't be alarmed I'm making this motions for the record um I move to approve the resolution with the addition of a requirement that the suspension shall remain in effect so long as court pre proceeds or president or grants a certain require it to be in effect or until such time as the suspension programs are terminated or replaced by the city council. Provided that any repeal of suspension will be uh by formal action of the city council and provided that the city council shall be asked to consider such repeal by formal action within 90 days following a change to the required grant assertion and court proce uh presidents. that clearly established the legal the legal legality I'm sorry legality of suspension programs and Leanne if you can articulate that for me please. Yes. >> Although I'm not in a support of it. Please articulate that. >> Absolutely. So basically this motion means that if anything were to change so that it's clear that the suspended programs were no longer an issue then this motion would require these suspensions to come back to council within 90 days of that change for consideration to repeal the suspension. So I've got a motion and a second on the original motion. We'll vote on this excuse me on the on the new motion on the floor. Once we vote on it, we would go revert back to the articulation I already gave you. Got it? So great. Okay. I've got a motion and a second. Please vote. I mean, sorry, me. Councilor Hall was a second if you didn't hear that, Janette. >> What do you do in that situation? I think we had at least one council member who pushed the wrong button. >> We can. >> So that would make it five. What would the be the vote then, please, Janette? >> So it disappeared off the screen. So, mayor, maybe we should just take a a revote on the item. >> And do everybody have clarity of what we're voting on? >> We're voting on So, the clarity is this if you vote yes on this motion, you are voting to approve the resolution. So, you're approving the suspension of the programs. The only difference with uh council member Nettle's motion versus the first one is he's adding language that would require it to essentially come back to council if things change in the future. >> And to my knowledge, do you have any issue legally with the language? I know you worked with council nettles directly to make sure. >> I'm fine with the language. >> You're fine with the language. And the reason I asked that question just for your reference is we're not legally allowed to bind future councils. So I think Leanne was trying to work on language that was tight enough that we could still adhere to that issue. the council, whichever council that may be in the future, this one a different one, they would have to consider undoing the suspension. So, it's not an automatic everything just goes back to the way it was. Uh, it would be a consideration by that council >> and it would require you to bring it to the council >> within 90 days for that discussion >> staff to That's right. >> Okay. Council Hall, did you have a question? >> Yeah. To clarify, we are going to vote on this motion and we're going to go back and vote on the original motion brought forth by Larsf and >> if it does not pass. Yes, ma'am. >> If this one does not pass. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. If this one's passes, we're we're >> Okay. I've got a motion by Council Member Nettles and a second by Council Member Hall. At this time, council, you can please vote. I don't have a queue in front of me. There we go. Thank you. Council member Hall, I don't have yours either. Registering. Yeah, councelor Lar, you have a question. >> Just while uh um Dr. Hall thinks about this, just want to want to be clear that in the in the future, no matter how this through a CP, this could come back. Correct. If if things change political landscape through a CP, we could discuss this again. Correct. So, there is a mechanism for for more to bring it back. Council member Nettles. >> Yeah. And just clarify, I think that's the purp Well, you can do it through a CP, but because this is an executive order is at the president's uh desire to do this. So in four years or three years of another president come in another administration come in and say we're going to bring diversity, equity, inclusion back, instead of just a councilman bringing a CP, this legal team will bring back to this council and within 90 days to have this discussion happen again. Or if the Supreme Court decides what the executive order is doing is illegal, then we bring it back. >> Okay. at this point. Okay, the motion fails, so we'll go back to the original motion. Um, and I probably neglected to do this earlier, but I'm gonna actually read in. It's resolution 25-5257 that we're voting on as a reminder. We we pulled out the small business piece, so that's why there's going to be two votes. So, at this point, I've got a council member Larsdorf on the original motion by Council Member Hill. At this point, please vote. Council I think everybody check your vote. Council member Flores, I don't have yours registered yet. This is voting yes for the resolution which would include suspending application of enforcement of certain ordinances and resolutions. Motion carries. Okay. Okay, now we're going to move to 25-5258, which is just the creation, I shouldn't say it like that way. It is the creation of a small business development program by adopting 25-5258. This time I can entertain a motion by councel. Got a motion by council member Kane, a second by council member Hill. Please vote. Check yours one more time. That's okay. Motion carries. At this time, council meeting is adjourned.