{"id":132578,"date":"2024-03-04T10:07:19","date_gmt":"2024-03-04T15:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=132578"},"modified":"2024-03-04T10:07:19","modified_gmt":"2024-03-04T15:07:19","slug":"councilmembers-agree-with-member-viera-about-establishing-a-racial-reconciliation-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=132578","title":{"rendered":"Councilmembers Agree With Member Viera About Establishing A \u2018Racial Reconciliation Committee\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-132574\" src=\"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Luis-Viera.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"295\" height=\"295\" srcset=\"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Luis-Viera.jpg 225w, https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Luis-Viera-160x160.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 295px) 100vw, 295px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: center;\"><strong>CITY COUNCILMAN LUIS VIERA<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>BY GWEN HAYES<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Sentinel Editor<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Tampa City Councilman <strong>Luis Viera (District 7) <\/strong>spent several months speaking with community organizations and members of the community about his idea to propose to his fellow City Council members the establishment of a \u201cRacial Reconciliation Committee.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Last Thursday, February 22, 2024, the Council members agreed with <strong>Viera\u2019s <\/strong>proposal and passed the proposal 7-0 to establish the committee, which is in the planning stages. <strong>Viera <\/strong>and the Council are looking to do this in a collaborative effort with Tampa <strong>Mayor Jane Castor. <\/strong>Hopefully, over the next 30 days they will have discussed the proposal with <strong>Mayor Castor.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>\u201cI do believe this is something that, if done correctly, can yield good results for our city and a much-needed continued discussion on pivotal issues,\u201d <strong>Viera <\/strong>stated.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <strong>Viera <\/strong>believes there should be specific issues addressed and he suggested the following 6:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Affordable and accessible housing.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Returning citizens.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Economic development, empowerment, and entrepreneurship (and this can include training\/apprenticeships, small business growth, capital access, contracting, etc.)<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The school to prison pipeline and our youth (and this can include youth employment and training).<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Civic engagement and restoration of rights.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Historical \u201ctruth telling\u201d (much like the Equal Justice Initiative project, this involves having a good discussion on our painful and ignored Tampa history as it pertains to African Americans with public education on same.)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When asked about members of the committee, <strong>Viera <\/strong>said there can be discussion on this; however, his idea is that each council member recommend one person, the mayor recommend a person, a couple of core organizations in the community recommend a person; and one person will serve as a facilitator.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <strong>Viera<\/strong> explained that the proposed committee is in the planning stages, and \u201cI look forward to a good discussion on these issues.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CITY COUNCILMAN LUIS VIERA \u00a0 BY GWEN HAYES Sentinel Editor \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Tampa City Councilman Luis Viera (District 7) spent several months speaking with community organizations and members of the community about his idea to propose to his fellow City Council members the establishment of a \u201cRacial Reconciliation Committee.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Last Thursday, February 22, 2024, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88889,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/88889"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=132578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132580,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132578\/revisions\/132580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=132578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=132578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=132578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}