Did you plan any follow up after the case was closed?


Wallace Warfield


 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

Question:
And long-term responsibility....

Answer:
Long-term responsibility?

Question:
What does CRS do about that?

Answer:
Well again, in some cases CRS would be available for re-entry. That would be one way of doing it.

Question:
But not all cases?

Answer:
But not all cases. And not all CRS people are amenable to that. And then also the question would be, "Was re-entry recidivist, from the standpoint of going back over something that simply was not well-taken-care-of the first time around? Are you going back to band-aid again, or are you going back to deal with another level of the conflict issue? And that case is fine. Because there’s nothing to say, by the way, that because we intervene at some kind of level, then that’s it. You know, most things are going to have other faults and weaknesses; that is human nature, after all. The question is not whether the conflict has been fully-resolved, but what has it moved on to, and are you responding to this new level of conflict that’s been taking place here?

Question:
And even if it was to change, that it wasn’t dealt with adequately the first time, so it comes back again that it’s not a new level, it’s the same thing over again. It does seem to me that the CRS might just go in and do it right the second time.

Answer:
Yeah, right. Do it right the second time.

Question:
So then what situation would you not go back in on?

Answer:
That’s a good question. I think one where I felt there was a level of dishonesty by the parties to their intent. I would think that, and this happened often, simply because there was a disempowered minority community – that did not remove the potential for manipulation from that community. That community can still be manipulative, or leadership in that community could be manipulative. People have political agendas and I think that, at least from my view, if I felt that CRS was going to be a part of somebody’s political agenda I would be inclined not to want to go back. Now, of course if they threatened you – "If you don’t come back in, we are going to call Jesse Jackson, or we are going to call the NAACP, or we know when you are going to come up before Congress for your budget and we are going to complain that you weren’t there.” I found that actually never happened, but.....




Stephen Thom


 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

What ever happened in that case, do you know? Was there a follow-up?

Answer:
We learned that this guy was a sergeant for a major police department that was well known for its strong, take control tactics. And it was the wrong tactics to take in that environment and I think once that person was removed it took the whole tension out of the community. They brought in somebody who had more of a small town, cooperative, we know the folks, kind of attitude. It changed the whole demeanor and the relationship of the town. So we have not had a request to go back. We've actually contacted them, and we know that that case worked out pretty well.




Stephen Thom


 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

The school disturbance took place in 1998 and the Human Relations Commission and I got together and decided that we wanted to see what the senior of 2002 thought about the riot of 1998 when they were freshmen. One of the strategies we use after civil disturbances on campuses is to do an assessment of the juniors and the seniors, and we do that for particular reasons. For one, we want to know what they think was the cause. What did they do while the disturbance was taking place? What should they have done? How could they help? So we do a combination of an assessment and plant seeds to make them partners in restoring calm to the school. That's why we do it with juniors and seniors because we want the older students to be partners with us, to try and put some pressure on some of the younger students to see whether we can defuse tensions. We do that in classrooms. We bring in a team of people so we hit all the juniors and all the seniors to try to see if we can line them up and be partners in trying to quell a school crisis. That's what we did in '98, meaning we didn't really talk to the freshman and sophomores. So we said, we'd better go back and talk to them as seniors and see what their points of view were, because we were so busy trying to squash any element of violence, we really didn't take time to meet with the freshmen. Usually the seniors will blame the freshman anyway, and what we learned from the review was that the seniors were actually challenging the freshman to take to first step, to cause it. And all those kinds of things we learned subsequently. So that's another approach we've used. In Inglewood, we promised the superintendent that we would go back there for the next 5 years to make sure there weren't any more civil disturbances. So we've been on that campus for the last 4 years, and it's gone smoothly.



Stephen Thom


 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

In our cases, when we get an agreement there is a commitment to do training and follow-up. Most of the training that I do is associated with the outcome of a mediation or a remedy to a conflict. That's the reason why I'm doing so much mediation training, Student Problem Identifying and Resolving Issues Together (SPIRIT) training, and consumer relations training -- I did a lot with the Korean swap meets -- good business practices training, anything that is a follow-up to the mediation that gives it more sustaining strength.





Angel Alderete


 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

Question:
How did you measure success? Is there ever a sense that a good meal indicated a measure of more general success?

Answer:
Meals created good feelings, but very little discussion on the philosophy of good community relations. It's just a good feeling about people getting together, and noticing that we don't have that many differences afterall. Of course, a lot of those differences are sort things that are sort of harbored by people that want -- for whatever reason -- to keep the turmoil going. But I got a really good feeling out of that whole situation. The community folks were the ones who really came up with that idea, by the way. It wasn't a suggestion by CRS or the cops; it was the community people who said, "Let's get together and sit down and talk to these guys in a more relaxed atmosphere." So although we never got anything down on paper except the report that came from us, I think the result from that was this kind of good feeling and comradery. They were in agreement that we ought to do this pretty often, and we did it about three or four times. Then it just didn't happen anymore. It was too much of a hassle -- for those of us who had committed ourselves to keep contact with everybody -- to just keep this thing going. Of course, since they were volunteers, it was obviously too much for them.




Edward Howden


 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

Question:
How common was it that you or other CRS workers have to revisit a site more than one time-- say you've gone to one site and developed this strategy to help the situation, you leave and you think it's all fine and good, but then it goes bad. Did you have to come back after a case was closed?

Answer:
Yes, but I don't think CRS was ever able to do enough follow-up on agreements that had been reached. Many of us were interested in that and tried to do some phone calls to find out what was happening. Of course, where we had a formal agreement we would have provisions for resolution of new disputes or disputes about the implementation of the agreement would've been written into the agreement, and that included calling us if they needed to. On one major case involving a Native American community and a sheriff's department, we actually had three Native American communities, technically three different tribes, but in the same general area. With great effort and some initial reluctance on the part of the sheriff to get into it, he got persuaded to let it happen. We had a big mediation and came out with a full fledged agreement. This had to do with all kinds of frictions and tensions between members of the tribe, particularly younger members and sheriff's deputies that were the law enforcement in the area. We got a good agreement, announced it publicly and it took effect. Four or five years later, there was a new sheriff. I had some occasion to talk to the new sheriff who apparently had come up through the department, but was younger than the old-timer we had dealt with before. He seemed to have some progressive ideas. I remember asking him how was the agreement going and it became clear to me he was not very well aware of that agreement. I said, "Wouldn't it be a good idea to maybe take a look at it, and if necessary, update it?" The short of the story is he agreed with that and so we went back and in effect did much of it over again. We reviewed the whole thing as to the progress that had been made point by point, or had not been made, and we came up with a second new agreement with the new sheriff and announced it publicly.




Bob Hughes


 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

Do you remember the points of the agreement?

Answer:
One. We recognized the Indian treaty and their usual custom fishing areas, and their right to access waters by passing through other waters for fishing. Some such verbiage. They have a right to pass through and use private property in order to exercise that right. A major, major concession was the recognition of those rights. But that was worked out in a joint committee. The tribal attorney in this case, who's a non-Indian, young man, was probably crucial in the working and persuading. He probably said something like "If you will give this recognition, I think in exchange, we can get to these other concerns that you have addressed."

Question:
What was given in exchange?

Answer:
All of this. There was a listing of procedures. All nets shall be lit at all times, they shall be placed so as to provide clear navigation channels in and out of the bay. There will be no loud playing of radios or excessive noise while fisherman are involved in fishing. There were a number of things like that, which addressed these specific concerns that had been raised. The Tribal Fisheries Patrol was a key part. They had one large boat with a sergeant in charge of it, who was a highly respected man, a Chippewa. He was from another part of the country, and he was highly respected, had a lot of law enforcement experience, and outside of tribal enforcement. During fishing, operations are taking place, during the fishing season, the Fishers Enforcement Patrol will regularly visit these areas and will ensure that all fishermen have copies of this agreement and that they will have authority to lift nets that are improperly placed and so on. So there was an enforcement procedure. And I believe that was it. These agreements are permanent. They'll last forever. It doesn't terminate at a certain point. The last item in the agreement would be that the mediator will arrange for a meeting three months from now for the purpose of reviewing implementation of the agreements. Secondly, for the purpose of addressing new issues related to this general area that may have arisen, that are not addressed specifically in the terms of the agreement. Thirdly, and this is by far the most important, I could renew working relationships. Now, I don't recall if I said all of that on the first case, because that was a growing awareness. But from that point on, every mediation agreement, I would try to persuade them to agree to that. This may have been where I first used that. What came out of this was, the time of the next meeting was after the fishing season had been completed. In the meantime, there was a procedure for a complaint channel, a number at the Fisheries Patrol Office, and this is the name of the person who's in charge of it. Call, and he will respond to calls from property owners. That was a commitment that he had made. He must have been invited into the meeting to be introduced and so on, a very attractive person and a lot of this was successful because of him. He could be depended on to come, and he did. The provision for the follow-up meeting was at the conclusion of the fishing season, which would be over in October or something like that. There's various runs of salmon, I had to learn all this. "When the last run has run then the mediator will reconvene the parties and we'll review the implementation of the agreement." And at that point, we arranged for, prior to the beginning of the next season, which would be about August or September, we'll meet again and be sure that we have the right phone numbers and any changes that have taken up. All these things that the Indians have little knowledge of, but that was provided for. That went on for several years, that kind of meeting.

Question:
With you involved?

Answer:
I was for the first year or so, but we would meet at the sheriff's Marine Patrol Office, the precinct where they operated out of. And I'd work out of the role of mediator and turn it over to the sergeant in charge of the Marine Patrol. He'd have the responsibility for contacting the parties to be convened, and maybe I would attend, maybe I wouldn't. But I was trying to get out of their dependence on me. There were various problems that came up later, but that was the process and dynamics that went into that case. That was my first fishing rights case. But it wasn't the last.




Manuel Salinas


 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

So then I became more of a resource person rather than a mediator.

Question:
What kinds of things did they call on you for?

Answer:
Well I helped them on some education issues, because we have a lot of publications on education issues, or could I identify a person that could come in and help them on education issues who had done well in another area. I went to San Jose, CA to view a school there. One man there turned a whole school around, so I went out and visited there, and then made arrangements for some Denver educators to visit as well. Those are the little things we can do as far as resources are concerned. There's no major case; it's a case, but it's not a true mediation case. I was involved with them quite some time after that on that kind of basis.

Question:
Were you continuing to go to their meetings?

Answer:
Yeah, I continued to go to the meetings. I didn't drop it off immediately, whenever I could I attended, so most of the time I was there. They didn't hold them that often. As they began to get results, the meetings began to wind down a bit.




Dick Salem


 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

I got wondering fifteen years later, and I went back again to St. Cloud, and that was a wonderful experience. First I met with Commissioner Orville Pung in St. Paul and he arranged for the superintendent to see me. I drove out to St. Cloud, and as soon as I got there I was told he had just left for lunch; he stood me up for an hour and a half just like he always had. He came back and we talked. He said things were going well. He said, "Yes, the inmates-staff council is still meeting. In fact, they're meeting this afternoon, do you want to go?" So I went down, and they were just starting their meeting. There was the same psychologist who had been there fifteen years earlier; he was now associate superintendent. Lt. Westbrook was still in charge of disciplinary actions; he later told me things were going well. At the meeting, an inmate representative complained about guards shining flashlights in the eyes of residents at night, and about sheets coming back torn from the laundry, It all sounded familiar, but now there was a forum to address and discuss things.



Nancy Ferrell


 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

Q - Did you ever initiate any follow up? A - If I had time. But generally, you were on to something else. I think it's one of the things that could have been real helpful to the agency, and even to the mediators, to do some follow-up and feel good about the long-term impact. But generally it happened as you got involved in the community or the area again, and you were aware of people and you talk to people. Again, once you've spent a couple years in a state, you know most of the players and the civil rights issues. And you'll see them in other contacts and talk about it informally. But there was never a formal process for follow-up. If you've got one person working a state and a half, you don't even touch what needs to be done, much less getting around to following up on what you've done already.





Angel Alderete


 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

Today it's different, and I can't tell you that I really followed up on it, because I just didn't have the time to follow up on it. I would call them to find out what was happening, but I never really followed up as I should have. Anyway, that's how we got into Pomona and that's how the community folks were the ones who again were the mainstay.



Leo Cardenas


 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

Did they stay together afterwards for other purposes?

Answer:
They stayed together for at least two or three years and the agreement was carried out throughout the five year process. Minorities were hired at each station.

Question:
Did CRS have any long-term involvement in it, or did you leave after the settlement?

Answer:
No. While CRS had an office in Denver and had relationships with both parties, the reality is that CRS did not then, and does not now have the ability to do follow-up, except on a very limited basis.

Question:
Why's that?

Answer:
Lack of resources and, of course, staff.




Leo Cardenas


 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

But in the agreement itself, there were resources with which to do things that hadn't been there before. CRS always works a dispute so that whatever enforcement mechanisms are there, they're self-enforced, by the parties themselves. You know, we've never seen ourselves as having the capability of doing follow-up.

Question:
Were there certain things that you did to insure that?

Answer:
Well, in this case, the money and the commitment, and on both sides, like I said. It's easy to point to money, but it's the commitment and it's also the relationships that were established. And in this particular case, it not only established relationships here, because it eventually became a national agreement, but as a result of that, McGraw Hill then went into the four other cities and worked those programs almost voluntarily as a result of the agreement.




Bob Ensley


 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

Well, we always do follow-up. That's part of our mandate. Do whatever you can to follow up. But sometimes it's very brief. When it's just getting rid of a closing case, but I was always reluctant to close cases. I always hung on because I always felt that there was a little more that I could do, a little more that I could get the group to do. So it became difficult for me to close these types of cases. My wife would tell me, "You become too involved and you have to learn when to back away." In certain cases, yes it was true. It was true I'd become too attached. It's human nature. You get attached to certain caring people who are aggressive, doing things particularly well. Young people -- I am addicted to young people doing things and I'm just..... I just can't help it when I see young blacks or young whites who are committed and involved in things that are going to make a difference. I am right with them.



Bob Ensley


 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

But if they come to an agreement on their own and begin to realize this is their problem, then you can feel a little more comfortable with leaving and saying, "I'll be back." You do go back and follow up and see if they've made any progress; you look at your checklist.



Werner Petterson


 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

Question:
Did the court cases have contingency plans, or a plan whereby the parties could come back and revisit the agreement?

Answer:
Oh absolutely, all the consent decrees would have a clause in there that either party could. Well, what we set up was that if there was a problem they would come back to me and we would try to work it out and get over whatever hurdle, but if that didn't work they could always take it back to court.

Question:
So you made the contingency plan?

Answer:
Right

Question:
Did you do any follow up after the cases were done?

Answer:
No, I never did that in CRS.







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