Members of the Ferguson Commission will have a final draft of the commission’s report to review by August 28, they were told at a working meeting on Friday, August 7 by Nicole Hudson, communications consultant. Hudson said the report will be published digitally first, with a print edition to follow.
She said writers preparing the report would follow a few guidelines. The report will be “story-based and human-centered, to help people understand how policy impacts their day-to-day life.” There will be a “visual narrative” to help readers follow the policy issues. And the report will “reflect the interconnectedness, breadth and diversity of our community.”
Hudson spoke following the commissioners’ ratification of a set of “signature priorities” for calls to action. She raised both her arms as if cheering and sang the word “calls” to express her satisfaction at the clearing of that hurdle. “Now,” she said, “we can start narrative building.”
Commission co-chair the Rev. Starsky Wilson pointedly reminded his fellow commissioners and Hudson of another core priority, saying the commission “voted unanimously for the lens of racial equity” to inform the report, including its data base.
“For example, if we are illustrating a call to action about in-school suspensions, we need data on in-school suspensions broken out by race,” Wilson said.
The signature calls to action were broken into sections: Citizen-Law Enforcement Relations (the most extensive section), Municipal Courts & Governance, Child Well-Being and Educational Equity, and Racial Equity, which has only one call to action which, in effect, embraces the commission’s mission: “Intentionally apply a racial equity framework to existing and new regional policies, initiatives, programs and projects in order to address and eliminate existing disparities for racial and ethnic populations.”
Gov. Jay Nixon appointed the 16-member commission on November 18, on the eve of the grand jury decision in the Darren Wilson case. Of course Wilson, at the time a Ferguson police officer, shot and killed unarmed teen Michael Brown Jr. on August 9, sparking months of unrest that provoked Nixon to form the Ferguson Commission.
“The charge was to address the underlying root causes that led to the unrest in the wake of Michael Brown’s death,” the commission notes on its site, “and to publish an unflinching report with transformative policy recommendations for making the region stronger and a better place for everyone to live and to guide the community in charting a new path toward healing and positive change.”
This working meeting, held at St. Louis Community College’s Center for Workforce Innovation in Ferguson, came just two days before the one-year anniversary of Wilson’s fatal shooting of Brown, as Ferguson was beginning to fill up with activists and national media. Unlike early commission meetings, which were disrupted by protestors suspicious of or impatient with the official proceedings, the August 7 working meeting was all business. This was the minutia of democracy in action.
“We are trying to hear the voice of the community,” said Commissioner Daniel Isom, former St. Louis City police chief and director of Public Safety for the State of Missouri. “We have heard a lot about the accountability and oversight of police.”
And they will hear more yet. Brittany Packnett, executive director of Teach For America and an active Ferguson protestor, said the work they were commissioned to do will not stop with the publication of their report. “Our young people are telling me,” she said, “that our work is not done.”
Ferguson Commission site: stlpositivechange,org.
