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b"November 17, 2022, Sarah Reith \\u2014 The Fort Bragg City Council voted this week to carry out six recommendations by a citizens commission that was convened in 2020 to find out if changing the city\\u2019s name was supported by its residents. \\n\\nFort Bragg was named for Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general who never set foot in the town but was highly respected by a soldier who served with him in the U.S. Mexican war. Bragg also took part in the Second Seminole War against the indigenous people in what is now the state of Florida.\\n\\nIn the summer of 2020, as the country entered a racial reckoning in the wake of George Floyd\\u2019s murder, the Fort Bragg City Council considered a ballot measure asking residents if they wanted to change the city\\u2019s name. The question led to an in-person City Council meeting in the midst of the pandemic, where members of the public spoke for hours on a wide variety of opinions regarding the history of the city and the nation, and which aspects of it deserve what kind of emphasis.\\n\\nThe council convened a citizens\\u2019 commission to research the question and \\u201cthe deeper systemic issue of racism.\\u201d The commission met for more than sixty hours over the course of a year and a half. Earlier this year, it came back to the City Council with six recommendations, not including a name change.\\n\\nThe most complicated of those was to craft a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, between the Council, the school district, and local tribes, to present \\u201ca more complete and inclusive history of the local area,\\u201d according to a staff memo attached to this week\\u2019s agenda. City Manager Peggy Ducey said she expected the negotiations around crafting the MOU would form the \\u201cbackbone\\u201d of the city\\u2019s approach to the rest of the recommendations.\\n\\n\\u201cI couldn\\u2019t go into those meetings and sit and tell the tribal groups what\\u2019s important to them and what\\u2019s not important,\\u201d she told the Council. \\u201cBut as we look into this MOU, we\\u2019re needing something that\\u2019s meaningful, not something that simply has words of, we\\u2019re going to get along and play together nicely.\\u201d\\n\\nAn ad hoc committee including two City Council members will get to work on the MOU in January. The makeup of the City Council is expected to change significantly in the new year.*\\n\\nTwo more recommendations were creating a cultural center and appointing a local history working group to educate the community and its visitors about the role of indigenous people in the area. Mary Rose Kaczorowski, a candidate for City Council, spoke about her hopes for the cultural center. \\n\\n\\u201cI hope that the city recognizes that this should not just be us Europeans who have ideas, but the Native tribes be telling their own story without our interference, '' she said. \\u201cBecause some of the archives that I have seen by cultural institutions are not accurate, and also have racist tones.\\u201d\\n\\nCouncil member Marcia Rafanan asked Cristal Mu\\xf1oz, a city administrative analyst, to specify which tribes would be involved in making decisions, and alluded to the complexity of the task ahead.\\n \\n\\u201cIt says tribes. Local tribes,\\u201d she noted. \\u201cCan you define that a little more, please?\\u201d \\n\\nMu\\xf1oz replied that the Sherwood Band of Pomo Indians have been involved with negotiations around the Blue Economy, \\u201cso I think that\\u2019s where we would start, and then invite any other tribes that would be interested, in.\\u201d\\n \\n\\u201cOkay,\\u201d Rafanan said. \\u201cAnd that could get messy, too.\\u201d She noted that one inland tribe has gatherings on a local coastal property. \\u201cThank you, Cristal,\\u201d she concluded.\\n\\nMu\\xf1oz expects some of the recommendations will tie in with one another. She outlined a scenario where the educational initiatives, including an outdoor public event, could lead to funding opportunities as state priorities begin to lean more favorably toward Native Americans, particularly AB 1703, the California Indian Education Act, which encourages local Indian Education Task Forces.\\n\\n\\u201cSo the parallel plan, number two, will be the creation of a local working history group,\\u201d she explained. \\u201cThe working history group will coordinate with the historical society to develop these activities, to create a meeting space, and to seek grant funding for historical plaques, trails, and other informational materials. The second part of that would be to organize the North Coast Day. This could be done with the Visit Fort Bragg to develop an inclusive and diverse community event on the coastal trail. This would be a kickoff for the fundraiser for a potential cultural center, and then also to seek grants to fund the cultural center.\\u201d\\n\\nA recommendation to create a policy that would prioritize returning lands to local coastal tribes does not seem to be fully fleshed out yet, according to Vice-Mayor Jessica Morsell Haye, who chaired the citizens commission.\\n\\n\\u201cIt would basically be a policy that would cause city staff, whatever the project is, to stop and look and see if there is an opportunity to shift some of the property or give some land back to local tribes, '' she said. \\u201cIn the conversations, we didn\\u2019t discuss funding for direct acquisition to then pass over. It was more about adding it to the thinking so that it would just be intrinsic within city logic, looking for those opportunities. But I was the chair, not one of the decision makers. But that was my take.\\u201d\\n\\n\\nCouncil member Tess Albin Smith alluded to the commission\\u2019s year and a half of meetings as she voiced her concern.\\n\\n\\u201cI am still troubled by the lack of milestones,\\u201d she said. \\u201cI\\u2019m the kind of person, if you have an MOU, you have certain milestones you hope to have done. Otherwise the thing just flounders, you know, it\\u2019s just a group getting together to talk about stuff.\\u201d\\n\\nThe Council voted unanimously to get started on the recommendations, put out a notice that it is forming a historical committee, in addition to the ad hoc committee, and make the first order of the new mayor to appoint the committees in the new year.\\n\\n*This article has been edited to correct a misstatement about the number of incumbents running for re-election to the Fort Bragg City Council. Three incumbents, not two, ran in a race consisting of eleven candidates, not ten. According to the November 18 tally, incumbent Lindy Peters is in the lead, with 77.73% of the vote, followed by newcomers Jason Godeke, with 25.63%, and Alberto Aldaco, with 22.27%. Incumbent Marcia Rafanan received 16.39% of the vote, and incumbent Tess Albin-Smith garnered 11.03%. The final results will be available after the election is certified, within 30 days of the November 8 election."