After four years of controversy and limited progress, Iowa City’s Ad Hoc Truth and Reconciliation Commission, or TRC, is nearing the end of its mandate, embodying the broader challenges of addressing systemic racism at the local level.
Created in response to national protests after George Floyd’s murder in 2020, the TRC was tasked with a bold mission: to gather stories of racial injustice, recommend policy reforms, and foster healing in the community. As the commission prepares to submit its final report, questions remain about its impact and the future of racial equity efforts in Iowa City.
At the commission’s Dec. 5 meeting, Chairperson Chastity Dillard said the group intends to ask the Iowa City City Council for a six-month extension for the commission to finish writing its final report. The Iowa City City Council addressed the TRC’s request at the Dec. 10 meeting.
“If we do not get this extension, we will not have the reports that we feel confident about, but we will make do,” Dillard said.
Commissioner Amos O Kiche said he is hopeful the city council will grant the extension, as the TRC did not ask for additional funding.
“We are the ones who are volunteering to give over time and resources,” O Kiche said. “They help us with the building and the facility, so the fiscal impact is very little.”
The TRC was created by a resolution in 2020 from the city council, which stated that the TRC would submit a final report to the city council, including a summary of its work, stories of community members, and recommendations for the city council for policy reforms to address systemic racism.
“This is pioneering, where we’ve been trying to pave a new way, blindly at times,” Dillard said. “That takes a lot of work, trying to form or reach the goals that we are hoping for.”
At the December meeting, the TRC discussed ways to permanently integrate their goal of addressing systemic racism into the city’s infrastructure to create preventative, rather than reactive, measures for combating systemic racism.
Commissioner Louis Tassinary emphasized the importance of this in light of recent restructuring of the University of Iowa’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion departments.
“That’s what’s so important to me about something coming out of this that becomes routine,” Tassinary said. “Because when it’s something special, it’s always the first thing that can be axed.”
This emphasis on creating lasting change highlights the challenges the TRC has faced since its inception, including internal conflicts that surfaced early in its history.
One of the first controversies surrounding Iowa City’s Ad Hoc Truth and Reconciliation Commission arose when former chair Royceann Porter resigned ahead of a no-confidence vote scheduled after commissioners accused her of fostering a culture of bullying and intimidation.
At the time, Porter was also a Johnson County Supervisor. She was recently unseated by Mandi Remington in the latest election.
Later that month, the Iowa City City Council voted 5-2 to suspend the TRC for a month following nearly two hours of public comment, the majority of which opposed a suspension.
When the TRC resumed in April 2021, commissioner Mohamed Traore was elected chair, and he appointed commissioner Amel Ali vice-chair. The second wave of TRC leadership would ultimately be short-lived.
Following a TRC meeting on Nov. 4, 2021, Traore was arrested in connection to a 2019 offense of operating while intoxicated.
When informed of a warrant, Traore expressed confusion, stating his probation officer never mentioned it during the past year, and he believed he had fulfilled the requirements of his 2019 case, though police claimed he hadn’t completed his sentence.
In a press release following Traore’s arrest, Iowa City Police Chief Dustin Liston acknowledged the concerns about the timing of the arrest, emphasized the officers’ good intentions, and reaffirmed the department’s support for the TRC’s mission while committing to building trust with the community.
Traore was released from Johnson County jail the following day and continued to serve as TRC chair until July 2022, when he ultimately stepped down, citing personal family matters and career goals. Traore appointed Ali to fill the role going forward.
However, just a couple months into Ali’s time as TRC chair, Porter approached the city council at its August meeting, demanding that Ali be removed from the TRC for comments made during a June appearance on the podcast “Rock Hard Caucus,” where Ali allegedly referred to Porter and other local Black leaders as a racial slur.
Ali, also a woman of color, told the Iowa City Press-Citizen that her use of the term aligned with its slang usage within the Black community to criticize Black leaders perceived as not supporting Black communities.
At the meeting, Porter claimed an anonymous source mailed her a USB drive with the audio clips, but podcast host Justin Comer alleged that public records of Porter’s text messages show Coralville Mayor Meghann Foster provided the recordings.
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Ali was ultimately suspended from the TRC and resigned on Sept. 27, 2022. Then Vice-Chair Chastity Dillard stepped into the role of TRC chair.
However, turmoil regarding the commission again came to a boiling point regarding commissioner Sikowis Nobiss, founder of local Indigenous nonprofit Great Plains Action Society, who was appointed to fill the space left by Currin.
Although Nobiss joined the TRC with a strong belief in its mission, she said her experience was overshadowed by a personal conflict with Royceann Porter. Nobiss described Porter as a “bully” who held a grudge against the commission after her resignation as TRC chair in 2021.
This tension came to a head during a July 6, 2023, Johnson County Board of Supervisors meeting, where Nobiss accepted a proclamation recognizing Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.
During the meeting, Porter interrupted Nobiss’ remarks to emphasize the proclamation should include all people, not just Indigenous individuals. Nobiss accused Porter of making an “all lives matter” argument, calling her comments inappropriate during a moment meant to highlight Indigenous issues.
“Why was I treated badly by Royceann Porter when receiving this proclamation on this very delicate, very sensitive subject? Because [Porter] has a chip on her shoulder regarding my involvement with the TRC,” Nobiss said.
Beyond the broader challenges faced by the TRC, controversy extended to former Commissioner Eric Harris, whom the TRC voted to remove on Oct. 25, 2023, following legal troubles earlier that year.
In June 2023, Harris was charged with possession of a controlled substance and domestic abuse. Placed under house arrest, he allegedly cut off his ankle monitor on Aug. 30 and attempted to flee to Chicago, leaving the device in a trash can at the Trailways Bus Station on East Court Street.
When deputies contacted Harris via text, he admitted running to avoid arrest. He was apprehended and charged with flight to avoid prosecution and escaping custody, and he was booked into the Johnson County Jail on Oct. 5.
According to Iowa court records, Harris has faced multiple criminal charges since 1998, including assault, domestic abuse, driving while barred, and possession of a controlled substance.
It is unclear whether city officials were aware of his background before his June arrest, as background checks are not conducted for city commissioners.
Despite the controversies, the TRC continued its work, utilizing $400,000 in funding granted by the city council in May 2023. The funds were used to hire consulting firm Kearns & West to gather local data on systemic racism and facilitators such as ThinkPeace, Mobile Crisis Outreach counselors, and Native American community partners to guide community truth-telling events.
The last of four community truth-telling events, hosted by the TRC in March 2024, derailed into a heated conflict between Commissioner Chad Simmons and ThinkPeace facilitator David Ragland.
The conflict arose after Simmons invited a retired Chicago police officer to share his experiences via Zoom, which Ragland argued was harmful to the event’s purpose. The disagreement escalated into a physical and verbal altercation, and Ragland called Simmons a racial slur, temporarily halting the event before it resumed with a healing circle aimed at restoring dialogue and reflection.
In May 2024, the TRC approached the city council at a work session to address an earlier request for an additional $250,000 in funding. During the work session, Simmons told the council that failing to approve the request — which the TRC filed in January — would signify abandoning the community they pledged to support, and Dillard urged council members to help the commission finish its original goal.
Councilors Josh Moe and Megan Alter expressed disappointment that the previous $400,000 in funding did not lead to a more detailed action plan accompanying the funding request. Although no vote was taken during the work session, Iowa City Mayor Bruce Teague and several councilors expressed reluctance to approve additional funding for the TRC, citing the lack of specific or general project ideas in the commission’s presentation.
While Teague said he was open to the possibility of additional funding with more specific plans, Dillard described the council’s hesitancy as a pivotal moment for the commission, prompting members to reassess their next steps within their mission.
The TRC hosted two final meet-and-greet events on Oct. 5 and 20, providing an opportunity for commissioners to engage with the community about systemic racism.
Now reflecting on the commission’s history, Dillard, Tassinary, and O Kiche acknowledged the immense challenge of tackling such a broad and complex mandate, emphasizing the difficulty of addressing systemic racism on a community-wide scale.
“Most [truth and reconciliation] commissions are usually very specific to a particular thing, maybe killings in a certain area, mass killings or something,” O Kiche said. “Ours is looking at social and economic things in a general way.”
Regarding past controversies, Tassinary said he prefers to remain focused on the positive results of the commission.
“There are some missteps, but I think it would be a mistake to devolve the conversation into conspiracy theories,” Tassinary said. “I just think there’s a lot of people who honestly have been trying really hard. People have been very passionate.”
Dillard said the fact the TRC has persisted and requested one last extension to provide a high-quality final report for city council proves the dedication of the members.
“If we’re still here, we care,” Dillard said.
Commissioners expressed hope that aspects of the commission will be integrated permanently into the structure of Iowa City, possibly as part of another existing city commission, and that the goal of proactively addressing structural racism can provide a model for other cities.
Editor’s note: Chastity Dillard is a former employee of The Daily Iowan.