The Bernal Story: Mediating Class and Race in a Multicultural Community

9. Aftermath

96 9 Aftermath Into the Community, Onto the Walls NOW T H E WOR K moved out into the community. Two days after the final meeting, Mauricio posted a notice on his Facebook page: This past Sunday, the mediation group met for the 6th session and another 3.5 hours of mediation. We have totaled about 17 hours of meeting time. So after 7 months of mural campaigning and 2 months of mediation we have come to a consensus around the below agreement. It is not perfect, and we are Cautiously Optimistic around the agreement. . . . The current mural will not be restored as is. A new mural/artwork will be created with our participation in the artist(s) selection process and community design process. The vital images of our current mural will be represented in the new mural/artwork as well as Bernal between 1983 and 2009. . . . Key to the success of the agreement will be your continued participation in the process. It should be much more enjoyable since selecting the artist(s) and participating in the design . . . should be fun since you’ll be creating something beautiful and reflective of our historic and cultural contributions. . . . PS: The billboard comes down April 16th. So take a picture in front of it before it comes down.1 1. Save the Bernal Library Mural, Facebook posting, March 31, 2010. Aftermath . 97 Darcy’s group similarly posted a celebratory announcement—and questions poured in: When do we get to say what we think? What will happen next? Who decides? The next day, Supervisor David Campos arranged to meet again in his City Hall office with the two concerned directors (Luis Herrera of the Library Commission and Luis Cancel of the Arts Commission ), plus several of their commissioners. Members of the task force joined me in presenting the consensus statement. The directors and David thrashed out questions of jurisdiction and funding. We talked about how to keep authority in the community and to create a definable body that would accept responsibility. The sense of relief and congratulations was strong as the city officials bent every effort to supporting the next steps. Meeting with the Community Our work was not yet done. We had still to present the agreement to the community and to launch the implementation. We scheduled a community meeting on April 26. David quickly proposed that he host it, an idea I thought intuitively right. This was a moment that called for clear leadership. We decided that David would introduce the gathering and then turn over its facilitation to the mediation group. We agreed it was important for the diversity of the group to be evident , as well as every individual’s commitment to the consensus; every member would share the leadership. Over the next several weeks, discussions went forward about forming a task force to implement the agreement. Some people felt it would make the work easier if, at least at the beginning, only people who had taken part in the mediation comprised the task force. Others thought it would be important to begin opening the process to more people who hadn’t taken part. In the end, we went with the first idea; for now, it seemed most important that this working group have an existing capability to handle conflict effectively. We threw membership open to the mediation group. Of the twelve who had participated throughout, eight volunteered: Terry, Darcy, Giulio, Mauricio, Dan, Monique, Brandon, Larry. The other 98 . A Well-Fought Conflict four had competing demands on their time, or felt for one reason or another that it would raise questions of conflict of interest were they to take part. The eight volunteers constituted a great cross-section of the mediation group and of the community. On the 26th, about seventy-five people met together at the neighborhood center. The mediation group was seated in front of the room. David intended to open the meeting. But in a dilemma familiar to politicians, his schedule ran late. The room filled with chatter and, I sensed, distinct tension. I conferred with the mediation group and suggested I run a community-building exercise while we waited. As it turned out, it was an excellent accident. I had people pair with partners they didn’t know and tell the story of their lives—in seven minutes . It’s an exercise I learned from Roberto Chené, and it always works splendidly to...