Nov. 12, 2019

Tera Long led a discussion of how MEDIC has proposed garnisheeing wages to ensure payment of emergency services and transport – when the better course may be to ensure emergency health care access to all by boosting the county subsidy for emergency services. Winston Robinson led  a discussion that began with trolley vs. light rail and ended up exploring how to organize minority populations to ensure that their neighborhoods receive equal services.

Through the second topic of discussion there were many signs of an undocumented story about how a group of African-American business leaders, in probably the 1980s, worked in silence to create a plan, and then pursue it relentlessly, to place determined African-Americans in positions of influence on community boards and commissions so that public bodies would begin redressing the neglect of African-American neighborhoods and opening up opportunities for all. That story needs to be explored publicly for the benefit of Winston Robinson’s much younger generation. Then the younger generation will build upon the lessons learned by that earlier generation. And the city will continue to work toward its vision.

In the video below, the ambulance billing presentation begins at minute 14:15. The westside equity discussion begins at minute 36:50.