Fort Worth’s Race and Culture Task Force unveiled its first set of recommendations to address racial disparities Monday night, which include a citizen review board for the police department and a service learning policy for the school district.
The task force, which formed over a year ago after the controversial arrest of Jacqueline Craig in December 2016, has conducted months of research regarding disparities within the city attributable to race.
“If we want to become a major city, we have to do major city things,” criminal justice subcommittee co-chair Ty Stimpson said as he presented his committee’s recommendations, which include the citizen review board, a police cadet program in Fort Worth schools and quarterly reporting on diversity within the police department.
He noted that Fort Worth is the only major city in Texas that doesn’t have some kind of citizen review board for its police department.
Arturo Martinez, a member of the education subcommittee, recommended that Fort Worth schools adopt a service learning policy to curb high school dropout rates.
Charles Boswell, the chair of the new governance subcommittee, proposed that the City Council appoint a nine-person Charter Review Task Force to essentially “make a recommendation to City Council regarding amending the City Charter to include the formation of an independent redistricting commission.”
