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Description
One of CIC's primary activities was to hold biweekly meetings called "community dialogues" to discuss broad issues such as racism, police sensitivity, education, and employment discrimination within the city of San Diego. The meetings were moderated by CIC Executive Director Carroll Waymon, and his voice is often the first one heard in the audio recordings of the meetings. The focus of this week's session was how to implement new ideas about race and equality in the existing public transportation system of San Diego. The group was still mainly concerned with extending opportunity for members of minority groups to allow them to advance to higher-paying and more highly skilled positions within the system, with an emphasis on expanding routes and updating equipment for minority neighborhoods. The immediate obstacles to these goals were identified by the group as first, maneuvering among the different factions of the then-current members of the board of directors in order to administer said adjustments, and how to enable members of minorities and public transport patrons to become a part of high-level decision-making. The immediate problem voiced by many was that there were no legal means to enforce ideas proposed directly by the group, while others felt it was not their place to be handing out orders, rather suggesting improvements and letting the existing board work out the details for themselves. After debating this issue for some time, group members conceded that it was more practical to flesh out the conclusions they had already reached. Foremost among these was the need for both a minority and a consumer presence on the board that would address concerns from their respective groups. It was agreed that if this method should prove successful, it would be a good model to expand representation in other organizations as well. However, due to a continued lack of participation by city council members, the political muscle of the group was still very weak, cause for concern among group members.