Question:
When did you begin working with CRS?

Answer:
May of 1972.

Question:
What were you doing before that?

Answer:
I was working part time at the post office, but working full time as a volunteer community activist in the Chicago 18th street area. I had moved to Chicago when I graduated from high school. I went to school in Chicago. The University of Illinois, Chicago City College, and Roosevelt University. Most of my time really was spent in community activities, like the great boycott with Cesar Chavez's people. Just a lot of activism. We felt at the time it would kind of shake up the system. We hoped when it settled we would be a little better off. So we worked in creating a high school in the 18th Street area, and a clinic in the neighborhood. We consulted with people and activists from everywhere, including the Black Panthers, who were in Chicago setting up a community clinic. We learned from them how to run a clinic. They'd been very successful in doing that in other cities. Out of that then, in 1972, one of my colleagues in Chicago who was with CRS already asked me to help him. He had been doing some work in Lansing, Michigan on some issues and that's where my brother was living and attending Michigan State. My brother was stirring up a fight and my colleague went over there to help solve those issues. They told my brother they were looking for somebody who speaks Spanish, and he said, "Well, talk to my brother in Chicago." He did, but I was very reluctant. I had experienced life in Crystal City, Texas, where I was born, and the relations between the community and the Immigration and Naturalization Service - which was part of the Justice Department - and then other things that I heard, such as the F.B.I., infiltrating community organizations. So I was kind of reluctant to join the Justice Department. I didn't trust them.

Question:
Then what was it that attracted you?

Answer:
It was six months later that I finally said, "Okay." Once I got to know the agency, I felt that I could still do the same things and I could fulfill the same goals, but from a different perspective. And I would probably have more impact. As an example right after I had signed up, we had a community organization that had been trying to get more employment for Hispanics in the post office. It was very difficult. My old friends called me because they were going to picket the post office downtown because they couldn't get a meeting with the postmaster. I said "Okay, I'll see what I can do." I went to the post office, called the post master, and I was going to set up a meeting. Then I went to the picket line and some of my old colleagues were there. One of them said, "Hey Martinez, pick up a sign and get on the right side. You're kind of a traitor now." Or something like that. I said, "Look, I could join you, but all I would be is one more sign carrier, whereas now I can set up a meeting with the postmaster. You've been trying to get a meeting for months, I'll be able to get you that meeting." So I did. I got a meeting, they talked and things worked out. So I was doing the same thing but now from a different perspective. Groups up to then were not part of the decision making process. They were not included. I remember once I was responding to a beating of a Mexican guy in Texas, back in the early 80's. We set up meetings with the mayor and the police chief before there was going to be a big march through downtown to the cemetery. The mayor asked one of the local leaders, "Why do you have to have this rally? You're going to give the city a bad name, with all the media out here." The guy answered, "We didn't give the city a bad name. It's your police officers who gave the city a bad name." The mayor asked, "Why don't you work through the system?" The guy said, "Well, let us in." If he wanted them to work through the system, then he had to let them into the system. That's where I guess a lot of minorities see themselves as not being part of the system. For whatever reason. But they need to be in where decisions are being made. In essence, a lot of our work is pretty much like that leveling the playing field. Bringing them to the table where they can discuss matters on a level plain. Through us, they can get to do that. Once they're there, they take up matters themselves.

Question:
That strikes me as a real interesting way to move into the case that we were going to talk about which is the relationship between Vietnamese and the KKK. The KKK is certainly a small organization, but obviously the dominant group, and not one that necessarily needs help getting to the table.

Answer:
The issue with the Vietnamese was after the war in 1975. They came to this country, not knowing the culture, not knowing the language, and with very little resources. They were settled in Texas and other states, but they eventually migrated on their own, especially to the Texas coast. When they got there, they saw that the best way of making a living at that time was to go into the crabbing or shrimping business. The investment was very low, all you needed was a boat. So they bought these boats and after a few years, once they saw how they were made, they started making the boats themselves. They were beginning to put a lot of pressure on the local fishermen because they were disturbing their way of life. Tensions began to build. It's mostly small communities out there on the coast. In Seadrift, Texas, two Vietnamese brothers that were into crabbing were being harassed a lot by this one Anglo crabber. From what I understand, this went on for several months. Finally, they were accosted by the docks one day and severely beaten. So then they both went to their home, got some weapons, and killed the guy.

Question:
So it was the Vietnamese that killed the white guy?

Answer:
Right. In retaliation. So that started a series of events that got me involved. It was August of 1979 when the killing occurred.

Question:
How did you initially hear about it? Was it something on television, in the media?

Answer:
I had been vacationing in Mexico. I called the office and they said that something had happened up here and asked if I could come back. Seadrift is about a two and a half hour drive from Houston. The town is a small community of about a thousand people. It had about a hundred, to a hundred and fifty Vietnamese. A seafood processor had brought them from Louisiana. His buddy had told him that if he was to bring Vietnamese, they were good workers and the women were excellent at picking the meat off the crabs. They came as a group and were living in some trailers away from the main part of town. After a while, they did rent some homes. The Vietnamese are known to be very frugal, very industrious, and they saved their money that the women were making at the plant and got some boats and they themselves went into crabbing. They came from Vietnam where there are no rules or regulations about fishing. You can fish as much as you want and keep whatever you catch. Well in Texas, to preserve the industry, you can't fish at night and you have to return some stuff. Also, there are open waters and closed waters, and some bays are closed entirely. You also have state regulations and federal regulations, as well as a two hundred-mile limit into the Gulf of Mexico. The Vietnamese didn't pay too much attention to all those laws and customs and what have you. So they began getting in trouble with both the authorities and with the local fishermen. A lot of it was culture, the fact they couldn't speak the language. But they could shrimp and fish without knowing the language, so they were out there from sunup to sundown. Only hurricanes would keep them in. The long time fishermen had customs and they had been there forever. The local, long time fishermen would be there until two or three in the afternoon, then sell their catch and drink some beer and get ready for the next day. The Vietnamese wouldn't come out until sunset and they would keep almost everything, and they would eat the stuff they couldn't sell. So that caused problems. We have to understand the environment we work in, the lay of the land in a sense. The Vietnamese were very group orientated, so if one would find a good shrimp spot they would call in all the other Vietnamese, or as many as could come over, and share in the bounty as a group. The local longtime fishermen took a different philosophy. It was: you're independent, so if you found a good fishing or shrimping spot, you'd be left alone so you could benefit and be rewarded for your skill. So it would be one person benefiting whereas the Vietnamese were a group benefiting. The problem with that is that the Vietnamese were accused of disrupting the water so much that the shrimp would leave and wouldn't come back for days. So that was another source of friction. Shortly after the killing, the Klan got involved. They were very active in the community and might have had some sympathizers. Mainly, they were out-of- towners who would pass by and try to intimidate folks by burning a few crosses shortly after the Vietnamese killed that guy. There was some retaliation. Some Vietnamese boats were burned and some homes were firebombed. Local police increased security. That was including the police chief who told me he couldn't preserve the evidence from the crime scene because he was trying to help the man who was wounded. The crime evidence went out of the window. I think one weapon was recovered and then lost later. When the trials were coming months later, I worked with the community and the law enforcement to prepare a security plan to make sure that the Vietnamese population was protected. We gathered law enforcement from throughout the county, state, and local police agencies, plus the one police chief. The mayor was a young guy who got in my car and he had this big gun. I said, "Why do you have that?" He replied, "I gotta be ready for those S.O.B.'s." I said, "What about me?" He said, "You take care of yourself." At that time, the Klan was getting a lot of media coverage, and the rest of the community was concerned about that. They knew they didn't believe in what the Klan was saying, but there was no other voice. Also, they were afraid to go against the Klan, because they knew these people may be armed and dangerous. So they kind of just went along. What I tried to do is create a bigger voice through the community leadership. The clergy, the school people, the business community, they can make up a larger voice. In any community, we look for those who make decisions, those who play a role in deciding what that community does or doesn't do. If you break it down to elements, you have the politicians, the educators, the business community groups, organizations which include minorities, and law enforcement. How do we know who to talk to? We have an idea since every town has a mayor. We don't know any names, so we just call the operator and say, "Hey, give me City Hall and the chief of police." Hispanic minorities in Texas are associated mostly with the Catholic church. But you cannot ask the operator to give you the number for the Catholic church. You have to ask for a specific name. But there's always a First Baptist Church. You can call that preacher and ask him for the name of the Catholic church in that town and where the minorities go to church? I would also ask about African American churches and their pastors, and how I could reach them. Before we show up, we know a lot about the town because the people tell us. Once I arrive, I look around to see who's got the biggest business, who's got the biggest house, are they racially mixed. Usually, I ask for the top three business people and I ask those people who the top politician is. I also ask the mayor who are the top business people, the top educators, the top community organizations, the top law enforcement.

Question:
Are you doing this after you get there?

Answer:
Usually, we try to do as much as we can on the phone, but if it's an emergency we have to be there quickly. Once I get there, I ask them several things from their point of view. What do they think is going on? Also, these people will tell me a lot of things about each other. Sometimes people have things they don't want you to know. So we just ask a lot of questions. Who's the leadership, who's the top educator, who's the top businessman, who speaks out front, who's in the back? Who calls the shots? They tell us. Then we make sure we talk to those five key individuals. Then we can pretty much be effective. The whole point of being effective is to create some kind of change or to help them progress, to solve their own problems.

Question:
When you asked about the top three in each category, did you hear consistent names?

Answer:
What I'm looking for is consistent names. If four of these people tell me I ought to talk to John Doe, I'll make sure I talk to John Doe. Now once I get to see them, what do I see them for? Essentially, I want to know what they know about the situation. Everybody sees things differently. Your reality is different from another persons reality. There are no real truths to a situation because we all see things differently. That's just the way we are. In essence, I have to find out your perception of what happened. What did you see? What do you think is going on? Also, what is it that you want, how do you want the matter resolved, and what role do you want to play in the resolution?

Question:
In the particular case that we're talking about, are you asking both sides about the situation?

Answer:
Yes. Sometimes getting answers from the Klan might be more difficult, but there are other people that sympathize with them, or speak for them, so I'll talk to them. Later on that year, I became very much involved with them in other communities. I used to then have breakfast or lunch with the Grand Dragon every other week to see what they were doing and they'd ask me what I was doing.

Question:
Did they welcome your presence?

Answer:
I think so. I always go self-interest. It was in their self-interest to know what I was up to. My position with those kind of groups is that they can let me know as much as they want to let me know so that I can help. I tell them, "If you're intent on committing a crime or being involved in criminal activity, I have to report that to law enforcement. So if you're going to do that, don't tell me. However, tell me enough so that I can help." So we have an understanding. But in this particular case, I would also talk to the politicians and the educators, and they tell me how things were. The Vietnamese and the white fishermen also talked to me. The first priority was security of the town, especially the security of the Vietnamese population. We planned that closely with law enforcement officials. Second priority was to help the town. At that time, it was being paralyzed, a lot of businesses were being closed. I asked the mayor to convene a meeting of all the town leaders. Then we began the process. Generally, I ask them what they think needs to be done about the problem. So, quickly we turn from a complaint phase into a resolution phase. Also, do they personally want to be a part of the solution process? Some say, "Yes, let me know what you need from me. I'll be there." Some will say, "I'll tell you everything you ever need to know, but don't invite me to be anywhere. Politically it's not safe for me to be there." They tell us who we need to talk to in the leadership, and tell us about the behind the scenes people.

Question:
Isn't anybody interested in getting rid of you?

Answer:
I guess there would be those certain kinds of people. But in this process, the more responsible elements began to take hold, always going back to their self-interest. In another community where there was a racial killing, I went to the business leaders, the chamber of commerce people, and asked, "What is this costing you?" "It's costing a lot of hotel reservations. People that were going to have conventions here have canceled. Fishing is quite popular around there, so some of the fishing tournaments have been canceled. The downtown shops are losing money because that's where some of the Klan rallies have been." It was to their self-interest to get involved, to do something about it. So going back to the self-interest, that conflict is bad business. Racism that causes conflict is bad business. And it's bad for the community business, so what I do is get to the self interest of these different elements. It would be to their self interest to get involved to fix the conflict. It's like say a hand or a body, you smash a finger, well the whole body hurts, not just the finger, the whole body needs to get involved in fixing the finger. In making it better for that one element it makes it better for everybody. Communities work in the same way.

Question:
Can you briefly tell us what the other interests were for the groups besides the businesses?

Answer:
Political leaders want to be elected and they care for the overall community. As for educators, their classes were being canceled, causing disruption in the schools, it's not good business for them, either.

Question:
Was there picketing outside of schools and businesses?

Answer:
No, but the Klan and others would have rallies in town, and it would intimidate everyone. Kids didn't want to go to school. The community organizations and clubs want peace and tranquility and they don't like violence. So everybody has a self-interest, it's just a matter of discussing it with them. I never tell anybody what to do because it could be the worst thing they could do. But I do help them analyze their situation and then they decide what to do. Then we discuss option A, B, or C. Which one has the most positives, which has the most negatives. Then they decide which option they take. There's consequences for A, B, and C. Good or bad, but there's consequences for doing nothing too.

Question:
Do you have this discussion with each group individually?

Answer:
Sometimes in groups or with individual members. A lot of times individuals can give me more information than when in a group setting. I talk to them individually and as a group to get a consensus. Always I ask, what do they think has to be done to resolve what's going on, and what role do they want to play. From this I try to get a community committee made up of all these elements. Once this committee decides to go somewhere and do something it will most likely be successful, because they have the okay of all these elements. That applies everywhere. Wherever you go there's different sectors of clubs or churches and they're all interrelated. The politicians may also be business persons, they have kids in school, they go to church, they belong to some clubs, their relatives might be in law enforcement. It's the same with everybody, in law enforcement the cops go to church and they have businesses, so it's all interrelated. You must have representation of the entire town, and if this committee decides to do one, two, and three, it likely will happen.

Question:
Now it looks to me as if most of the people in those categories are likely to be with the dominant group. How do you get minority people involved?

Answer:
I did say, there are community organization involving minorities. In this little town with the fisherman it wasn't quite that way. The Vietnamese were not that vocal, they were not a political force and they were excluded from a lot. The whole town acted on behalf of their own community for tranquility and peace and progress.

Question:
So how did you get this group together in the Vietnamese's place?

Answer:
I asked the mayor five or six times throughout the weeks and he just wouldn't do it, finally he says, "Let's do it." We went to his house and he called all these people and I said, "Give me the fifteen people that run this town." So he had fifteen or twenty people and we discussed what they thought of this. Some were very scared because of what the Klan was doing, but some had reached a point where they wanted to do something. I remember the owner of a restaurant who said, "This is it, my business is down and it may close." They were afraid that if they did something they might experience retaliation. She said early at three or four in the morning she heard a noise in the kitchen and she got up and it was her five year old daughter hiding on the side of the refrigerator, and she asked her what she was doing, and she said that the Klan was coming and she was afraid. She said, "When my child gets that afraid and can't even be safe in my house I'm not going to be afraid, I'm going to go out there." We analyzed with them their options and what they wanted to do. They chose a community rally although they said if we have a rally the Klan is going to come and the media is only going to cover the Klan. Also, what about security? So we helped them with law enforcement and came up with a security plan. It had to be a public rally so there wouldn't be retaliation of those speaking, with the option of city council passing a resolution condemning the violence and hatred. They were supporting brotherhood, togetherness, and working with each other, so the politicians were going to meet in public and pass this resolution. They asked me to write the resolution, I couldn't, but I did review it.

Question:
How long after you got on-site did the first meeting take place?

Answer:
This was about a month later when a lot of businesses had closed and the rallies of the Klan were ongoing.

Question:
Why didn't the mayor want to get this group together earlier and then change his mind?

Answer:
I don't know. I guess he felt that town wasn't ready at the time. I hardly ever did get too excited, but I got excited that first meeting because a lot of the people kept talking about the Vietnamese and who brought them in there and who's going to take them out. People thought they were brought in by the government and the government's paying them. The government was giving all this money to the Vietnamese to compete with the white men, which was not totally accurate. Once we had the committee going we set up goals for them and we clarified the rumors and got correct information. They were accused of not paying taxes, so I went to the IRS and got the laws on taxes and loans, and we made all that information public. Through these committees we have a vehicle that allows us to have information. The committees give us information of what they need or what's going on because they know the community. Then they disseminate the information to the rest the population. Through this we set up a plan. One thing we looked at were the friction points of the Vietnamese not obeying the laws and customs. We went to the Parks and Wildlife Department. They control hunting and fishing throughout Texas and I asked them for the ten commandments of fishing and crabbing in Texas. They had eight regulations, so then we needed to teach them to the Vietnamese. Once I got the eight commandments, I had my wife write them on posterboard and then I went to the Vietnamese people I was working with, and they translated them for me. So I had the regulations in English and Vietnamese and we had a training program. The game wardens would say the regulation in English and it would be translated into Vietnamese, and we would give them all these laws in writing in both languages. The other part was the Vietnamese/American custom barrier. That caused more problems. For example, when a shrimper or crabber is out in the bay if they have problems with their boat, such as mechanical problems, anybody at sea is supposed to come and help them. The long-time fisherman were complaining that their boats would have trouble and they would signal, but the Vietnamese would just laugh at them. This would make them more angry. "Not only are they taking our way of life, but they're mocking us." But the Vietnamese said they thought they were waving at them, so they were waving back and smiling at them because they wanted to be very friendly. They couldn't understand what the signal was, because they'd never seen the signal. Through these training programs they taught each other.

Question:
Did that group have any other issues with language?

Answer:
Well customs, like cutting in line at the food store, that irritated a lot of people. The Vietnamese supposedly saw all the options, and the best option for them was to cut in line.

Question:
When they understood how their behavior was influencing the wrong kind of population, were they willing to change?

Answer:
Yes. Through education and law enforcement. Because law enforcement was ticketing them and costing them thousands of dollars in fines, and confiscating whole boatloads of shrimp that were caught illegally. In this community the Klan had announced a huge rally, and we helped the community get together to have their own rally so that they would be protected and not get retaliated on. We had spokespeople for the business community, the clergy, the educators and other sectors. When we had the community rally there was a lot of protection, we had plainclothes police officers and uniformed police officers. It filled the school auditorium and the Klan was there with their sympathizers. After the dialogue, discussion, and presentations, the city council voted to pass a resolution. It got coverage, and the citizens took the town back. I just helped the community to use all of its elements.

Question:
Did the main group or the majority group make any concessions at all? It sounds as if the Vietnamese minority community adapted to make adjustments to accommodate the nine hundred other.

Answer:
We wanted to buy time that the Vietnamese would get to know how to do business and how to live in Texas. The American way let's say. And the locals would get used to the Vietnamese being amongst them. You go there now, the honor students in the schools were all Vietnamese. They were getting all the awards and getting scholarships so I think it was a matter of both sides understanding each other through that period. And we were the catalyst to make it happen and help the community realize what it was facing, and what they could do about it. They decided what they needed to do and they did it. We just kind of helped them along the way.

Question:
Was the KKK involved in this process?

Answer:
Yeah, they were. They came to some of the meetings.

Question:
Was that the sympathizers or the KKK?

Answer:
The KKK itself did come. They weren't wearing their robes while they were at the meetings.

Question:
What was their dialogue? what were they saying?

Answer:
First of all, that the Vietnamese were fishing illegally but the government wasn't doing anything about it, they weren't enforcing the laws. And because they weren't enforcing the laws, the Vietnamese were taking advantage of the locals' situation and the government was giving them all this money so it's an unfair advantage and so the Klan was out there to help the locals fight that. They were protecting the local community and its way of life.

Question:
Did you ever find out how they became involved?

Answer:
Any situation like this brings them out. Later on in another setting, when thousands of persons were coming across the border illegally, the Klan said they were going to help the border patrol because the border patrol could not keep all these aliens out. The border patrol said, "Hey, we don't need your help." Then I found out a vigilante Mexican American group was going to go out there to confront the Klan if they ever showed up, but they didn't. There's not that many of them. Through cross burning and rhetoric the Klan can cause a lot of concern. The minority community would say some law enforcement people are sympathizers. That they may not be wearing their robes but they certainly share the same feelings. We don't find guilt or innocence, we're trying to find out what they can do together. Also, we don't make any decisions. In essence in this whole process we sell ourselves. It's always a personal interaction. I have to sell myself to you. Once I do that, then I sell the mediation process.

Question:
How do you do that?

Answer:
We explain the benefits of the process. Through the process they come together, and then they sell each other, and then we're out of there. I believe that the process is seventy-five percent of the solution. Long ago, there was a scientist, philosopher, and writer, Marshall McCleuen, who said of TV, that "the medium is the message." Similarly, "The process is the solution." Because the problem is not necessarily what somebody did or didn't do, the problem is the fact that we don't trust each other, we don't communicate with each other, we're very suspicious of each other. We do hostile things to each other because we don't know any better. Through the process we get to see each other as human beings, and we have so much in common. We're just trying to make a living and we're looking out for our kids education and what have you. That's universal. That's the solution and they can do all kinds of things tangent to that, once they have this trust of each other. Sometimes it takes an outsider with no interest other than wanting to help them. We don't give out any money, we don't sell anything. If they don't have to accept us there, they can run us out of town. I tell them that if at any time they think my presence is negative for them, let me know. Because I'd rather not do anything than do something harmful. All they have to do is just tell me.

Question:
So you go into the initial meeting laying everything out, explaining your procedure and your process up front with both parties?

Answer:
I do it individually, or in a group setting. Sometimes we may key in on certain people depending on what the issue is and how bad or how small the problem is.

Question:
Do you decide that before you go in?

Answer:
No, I have to find out. I make as much contact as I can by phone but that's only to determine if we have jurisdiction. Is there a conflict in this community, and is it related to race? That's usually the phone contact. When we're there we explore the situation further.

Question:
Given the detail on the process, I was wondering if you could go back and speak specifically about the case. How were you able to get the parties to trust you or to buy into your process, what were the special techniques you used?

Answer:
Starting cold, if I came in here, I'd have gone into your office, I would have looked at what you have around you cause that's important to you. If you have pictures of your family, I'd ask you about your kids and I'd tell you about my kids. I'd tell you where I've been and what I've done lately. The town, I'd tell you about the temperature of the town. And there's always something there. Try to find that.

Question:
And what did you [unknown]?

Answer:
Because it's so hot down there, it takes certain fortitude and strength to be out there on a boat eight hours a day, the sun beating on you and the boat rocking all the time. So what I did the first time I went there, I went to the dock I just sat there for two hours, to try to understand what makes a person be here, when they could be doing some other job. I just asked them why. I showed an interest in their situation, in their lives. It's just human interaction. We're all human beings, so they see my humanity and I see their humanity. Now we can work. I can't just go up and say, "Hey, I'm from the government and I'm here to help you," you know that old line. When you walk into a sheriff's office let's say, you walk differently. Wear my other boots, the ones that make a sound, they're more like semi cowboy boots, wear my suit, pinstripe probably, blue tie, walk in there like you belong. Take a different position, ask some tough questions, but in a very friendly manner, and at some point they'll know you're not there to investigate them. You're not there to prosecute them, you're not there to do them harm so that they have to watch out and look out and be careful what they tell you. The more comfortable they feel with you, the more they'll tell you. That's the only way to help them because you have to understand their reality. Their reality from their point of view. That's the only way you can understand them, to try to help them resolve their own problems.

Question:
Was each party aware you were coming on-site?

Answer:
Yes. Only because I had told them, but a lot of them didn't know. Let me go back to the Vietnamese story. In this little fishing town, the Vietnamese were found not guilty.

Question:
Not guilty?

Answer:
Not guilty of killing this one guy. They had good lawyers. They made the case that you can defend yourself if you feel that your life is in danger. You can take life preserving measures to defend yourself, including using a weapon. The jury had to weigh the fact that, in this situation, the Vietnamese felt in imminent danger even though it was fifteen minutes later when they killed the man. They had good lawyers, and they made the case for coming back and shooting the guy. At the time, I used to have a government car. It was a brown Plymouth Horizon, little bitty car. In this little town, there's only one way in and one way out. I always used to take different streets when I was in town at night. I was cautious, in case somebody was following me. The first night I stayed at that hotel in town I had to fight the roaches and rats and what have you all night. I stayed in the next town, but I would always leave from a different direction. I used to park my car in the parking lot at City Hall, they had one big light. So after roaming around with whoever, I would come back and pick up my car, let's say 11:30 at night. The whole town was dead by then. I would open the door, lower the window, and then put the key inside and then turn it while I was still outside, if it blows up you go with it.

Question:
So you were afraid?

Answer:
Well, we all had to take precautions. We worked by ourselves most of the time. One time the committee people told me, "Hey the boys know when you're coming," meaning the Klan. I said, "Oh yeah? How do they know?" "Well, they know. And you know what they say?" "No, what do they say?" "Here comes Martinez in his Tijuana Taxi!" A lot of times, the police say, "I'm not gonna meet those people. They came to my office last week and the leaders were screaming and hollering, calling me racist and a pig and I'm not gonna stand for that." I would say, "Why don't I go back to that community group, propose to them they come meet you with a list of what they want. They want answers, but I'll have them prepare their questions beforehand. So before the meeting, you'll have all their questions and maybe something that they want you to do. You can analyze that and see how you feel, but I'm going to run the meeting. Before the meeting starts, everybody is going to agree to some ground rules. No screaming, no hollering, no insults, no nothing, I'm going to introduce the topic, I'm going to run the meeting, I'm going to manage the process. With those assurances, they're more willing to meet.

Question:
When did you know that it was the right time to bring them together?

Answer:
I brought them together once I have all these ground rules written out and everybody understands what's going to happen. Usually when I call a meeting I would have met with each one to see where they're coming from. How do they see this issue, what do they want, and are they going to be part of the process? Are they going to follow some of the rules that are going to be set? I don't like surprises, so before the meeting, I would find out the game plan for each person so I know where the pitfalls may be. A lot of times emotions are so high that things may get violent. If you bring them together too soon it's going to make matters worse.

Question:
What's the difference between "need" and "have to have"?

Answer:
I guess it's just another form of that, what is essential and what is critical. "This is what I have to have, I'm not walking out without this. I may need only this much, but I really want that much, so I'm going to ask for all this, and then you can negotiate down." Now the other side is probably thinking the opposite. "I'm not going to give them anything. But if they push me, maybe I can do this much." Just a matter of getting them to balance out.

Question:
Going back for a minute, when you're designing the process, do you get them involved in process design and ground rules, or do you do that yourself?

Answer:
We negotiate with them one-to-one and make sure everybody understands. We discuss and develop the ground rules at the start of the formal meeting. We help them decide how these meetings are going to run. They already know they have to respect each other, but now they have to commit to each other face-to-face.

Question:
Is there kind of a standard structure you use where each side lays out their needs and then lays out solutions?

Answer:
They lead themselves to that. Like in this situation with the fishermen, it wasn't that formal. But some other situations are very formal. For example, there's a town in Texas where police action caused a lot of disruption and the community had allegations of police brutality. I had worked with that chief before in a previous situation, and so he asked me to come and help. I had the chief's support, but the newspaper reported that he had asked me for help. So then it was assumed I must be aligned with the chief and competing against the minority community. Again we helped them to analyze their situation. They wanted an investigation by black F.B.I. officers, and of course they were going to write to the attorney general for this F.B.I. investigation. I explained to them that there were some benefits through my process that they would not get with the others processes. They could always exercise those options, they could file a civil suit against the city, which they did, they could ask the Attorney General to investigate, which they did, they could picket and holler and scream, and they did that too. Or, they could use my process, mediation. Then we analyzed the situation with them. Their attorney was advising the community people not to talk to the police or the investigators. This caused a problem because the police could not investigate through internal affairs, and the chief thought the police were being set up. I told the community, "I will write a letter to the Attorney General, once it filters through the process, it's going to take maybe a week or two. Then they'll assign it to a local F.B.I. agency so then about two months from now you'll have an F.B.I. agent over here. They'll take another month and a half to do the investigation, then it will go back to the civil rights division." I always tell them what the process is, because they may not be familiar with it.

Question:
So what exactly was the issue?

Answer:
It was a police brutality issue. There was a black youth party going on. A police officer came and then there were arguments among the people sponsoring the party about why the police were called. The police then left, but they came back and got involved in an argument and one of the police officers was hurt. He called for other police officers, and then everybody came. According to the witnesses, the police were pushing people and they used mace and a lot of racial epithets. They even sprayed mace in a little girl's open mouth. I had to analyze, with the community leaders, how long it was going to take for the FBI investigation to be completed and whether or not there would be African American agents. It was going to take at least a month before an investigation would start. Maybe there might have been federal violations, but not something they could prove. It could have taken five or six months. So I advised them in the meantime, "You have this problem with the police department. The lawsuits are going to cost a lot of money, and maybe a jury's going to hear it three years from now. In the meantime, I can offer you this mediation process. You can sit down and write about whatever troubles you about the police department, ever since time began." "Are you going to tell the chief about this?" "No, I'm not going to tell the chief, you're going to tell the chief." "Yeah, well they're not going to do anything." "Well, they're going to tell you what they're going to do or not do right there in front of you." So there's all kinds of benefits. "If you don't think the process is working for you, then drop it. But as long as you think it's working for you, go ahead." And I told the same to the police. So they came up with nine issues, including recruitment of minorities, internal affairs investigations, and composition of internal affairs. How the police enforce the law in one place and not another, and their excessive use of force. So what I have the community do is set the agenda. I asked them to propose a remedy. "What would resolve it? Something that's doable. We talked about what's doable. You can't fire all the officers and the chief, but what is doable." Right away you take them from a complaint mode to finding a solution. Right from the very beginning practically, once they accept the process. So you have an issue and the police department's going to come up with a response. It may not be what's happening, or how the police see it, but this is how we see it, and that's in writing.

Question:
Did you ever assist a party in coming up with what their interests were? Were there parties who were not well organized?

Answer:
Yes. You teach them the process and what's required of them. "You have to look at this, you have to spend time, talk to your neighbors, talk to whoever. What are issues that they are concerned about? One person is not going to know everything, and one person is not going to represent everybody. You have to have enough representation of both of the population and of the issues involved."

Question:
Did you help them determine what was doable? If they came up with things that were off the wall, would you tell them?

Answer:
I do the old devil's advocate thing. A lot of times they want civilian review boards, so I'll provide information or compilations of cities that have review boards and how they're working. You can use that. "And I give that to the police also, but you might expect that they're not going to accept it and if they don't accept it, what other option do you want? What's the next thing that would satisfy you?" Also, I explain to them what I'm interested in doing. Especially when it involves excessive use of force, a possible solution is to lessen the opportunities for problems to occur, for police misbehavior to occur. Lessen the possibility of that and then you don't have to deal with the after of trying to correct it. First, recruit the best people that you can and as diverse as you can, and give them the best training that you can give them. Monitor their activity. A supervisor needs to discipline them. If you do all that, and the community has opportunities to partner with law enforcement, through committees or police advisory committees, things can be taken care of before things get big. If you tell the chief some things that are wrong, he might be able to come up with a response, a remedy, an agreement of what will be done. This agreement will describe what is going to be done, who is going to do it, and by when. Otherwise you don't have accountability and you're just wasting time. My time especially.

Question:
What assurance do you have that the police will do what they say they're going to do by the time they're going to do it? What happens if they don't?

Answer:
The negotiators set up a monitoring committee of law enforcement and community representatives. The people and the police negotiate it as a deal and agree to meet three or four times a year, or at the end of four months. They will sit down and review all that was planned and see if it has been done. Most likely it will have been done because we only talked about what's doable. What happened in all this is the people are now talking directly to the chief. They see that officers are not sprouting horns like everyone painted them to be. They're not devils. We're all people here. The other day in this big town, there was a mediation meeting with police command staff, and I asked them to tell about themselves. Why did they get into law enforcement? How long have they been with the department? One sergeant, who's an assistant to the command person, said, "Look, I've got relatives, and they're all like you. I'm the one that's a police officer, but they're not. They face the same problems you face when you're out there." So the people there got to see this person as a human being that has relatives just like they do. Comfort and lack of intimidation are very important. For the next meeting, all the police were not going to have uniforms. But everybody knows each other now, and we've reached that level. Now we're very much into negotiating what's going to be done. Who's going to do it and by when? So the monitoring committee, at the end, assures that it's continual. Another town I worked with went through this process. At the end, the mayor wanted to have a press conference in City Hall, and the mayor signed it, the chief signed it, the city manager signed it, as well as the community representative. They all agreed to a monitoring committee that was going to meet three or four times a year for two years. However, they then agreed to make that monitoring committee permanent. Then it became the conduit for issues, human beings are human beings, we've been dealing with conflict since Cain and Abel hit each other or something. That's a long time ago.

Question:
Did you ever caucus or provide assistance to only one group and not the other?

Answer:
No, I don't think so. There was one case in a small community outside of Houston where a lot of Klan violence was occurring. F.B.I. and others investigated it, nobody was prosecuted, so we did an analysis. We had the community create a committee that of course couldn't be called the anti-Klan committee. It was called the Area Civic Club. I try to create a committee if there's not one, so we did that there. There were rumors that anybody going to the meeting would have their home fire- bombed. So we had a lot of police protection. A funny thing is, once you had the meeting going, the Klan showed up the first time, and just glared. In other parts of the area, they had gathered and fired off a cannon, burnt their crosses and all that. But at this second meeting, one to the leaders of the local Klan brought his people in, and he is now the Grand Dragon of Texas. He came and sat down and argued that it was the wetbacks who were responsible for all the violence going on there. He was there to defend the good name of the Klan. He said, "In fact, we haven't hung anybody in years." In another city I worked with the shrimpers back in 1981 or 1982. We always had to do things at the start of the shrimp season because things would heat up then. This one particular year, the Klan had been very active along the coast. We brought the communities together, helped create another committee of locals to deal with their problem, and had meetings with the Grand Dragon. This guy was also the head of a white fisherman's group. We had already talked individually, so when we met together, I talked to them about the benefits of coming up with an agreement about how they're going to share the bay. We had the meeting, but there were some glitches that we had not foreseen. The Dragon walked out. We were meeting at the City Hall and after one of his supporters walked out, I walked out. I was at the front table with the guy who was running the meeting, but he was doing a bad job of it. He seemed like he'd had too much to drink the night before. I didn't expect he was going to be partying all night, so I went to the Dragon and I said, "Hey what's going on?" He said, "We're going to go to the Governor. Forget all this." I always try to deal things at the most local level because the local people are the ones that are going to be out there, not the governor. I said, "I thought we worked it out." "Yeah, but this SOB..." This was about a year after the killing in the other town of the white guy by the Vietnamese. I said, "You're all going to be out there, the Vietnamese are going to be out there. If the shooting starts, it's going to go all kind of ways. We don't want what happened in that little town to happen here." He said, "Yeah, you're right. I'm not going to go to jail for so and so." I said, "That's what I'm talking about. Nobody has to go to jail, nobody has to get killed. We just need to go back to the table over there and I'll run the meeting." He says, "Okay, if you run the meeting, we'll go back." Diplomatically, I talked to the guy who was running the meeting and told him the plan. He said, "Yeah. Let's do it." So we got an agreement. I think it's the first time ever that the Klan signed an agreement with the Vietnamese fishermen on how all fishermen were going to share Galveston Bay.

Question:
It's interesting that you were able to convene the meeting with the KKK. Did your race or ethnicity ever become a factor in the negotiations?

Answer:
Sometimes. But I had meetings with them, the Imperial Grand Wizard and the Grand Dragon, and they differentiated between me and rest. I was Hispanic and the rest were wetbacks. They were planning a demonstration, and they don't say anything about Hispanics, but they say wetbacks, chinks, gooks, Jews, and all that. So I was sort of different. In fact, that guy called me a year or so ago, and he had some problems over there. But he had reformed. He said, "I no longer call people wetbacks. They are Hispanics." Great, that's progress. It's always personal. If I only dealt with people that agreed with me, I'd be the most lonely person out there. It's when they start putting some of these racist beliefs into action that it becomes a concern of mine. Depending on what that action is.

Question:
How do you diffuse tension when you've got groups that deeply hate each other?

Answer:
Normally if there are going to be counter-demonstrations, we help the community prepare for what's going to happen. Try to keep them as separate as possible. Also, be aware that some things may not follow according to plan, so be sure to have a secondary plan. Years ago when the Klan would come to Houston in buses they would receive police protection. There had been an incident in another town a few months before when the Klan marched and anti-Klan people were also out there in their own march. The march went well, but after the demonstrations were over, the Klan went to pick up their cars and some of the Hispanic gangsters accosted the Klan. They beat them up severely. They were not part of the deal, and the Klan came into their neighborhood, so they proceeded to do what they did. The law allows them to be as safe as possible and allow them to say whatever they've got to say. This upsets a lot of communities, but they have to be given their right to speak, as safely as possible. So that's why they always have a lot of police protection. They probably wouldn't go on their own because they would feel the reaction right away. People get upset with law enforcement when they do that. Still, they're following the constitution. At least how it's been interpreted.

Question:
That's what we'd like to know. How were you able to maintain impartiality in spite of all this?

Answer:
Not everybody can agree with me and everybody can say what they want.

Question:
I know everybody's not going to agree. So you would just kind of go with the flow?

Answer:
Well, you have to maintain a certain detachment in some circumstances. Half of my family doesn't agree with stuff that I do. My wife doesn't agree with me all the time. If I'm only going to talk with people that agree with me, I'm going to get bored. At that rally, the Klan was very inventive in what they were saying. I heard them speak many a time and the usual stuff comes out, but they were special that day. I commented to one of the reporters that I know, "I kinda feel slighted because they've talked against blacks, Jews, everybody. But they haven't mentioned Mexicans or Hispanics." About ten minutes later here it comes, Latinos. I went back to the guy, "Hey I feel better now. I was feeling slighted and forgotten." That's how the town dealt with it, and this was just last year. The Klan would come in and then they would leave. You can't prohibit them from coming in, but if you can manage their stay and you help the town agree on how it's going to respond to them, then they're going to come and they're going to leave. What I helped the town do was stay focused. You set where it wants to be, where it wants to go, and how it's going to do it. If it stays focused on that, then it can withstand any other group coming in, African American groups, white groups, any kind of group coming into town, with the understanding you're going to manage their stay, and they're going to leave. But you stay focused on what you all need to do together here to get beyond where you were, where you are, and where you want to be. We helped them create a vehicle for that.

Question:
Did the conflicts ever change over time with the way in which you were involved in the case? You sat down with the parties and you had come up with a game plan that you think would work. They came up with a game plan suitable for the conflict, but over time, over a month or two, did other conflicts arise?

Answer:
Yeah. Things change, everything is fluid. What's possible now may not be possible tomorrow, and vice versa. But if you can help them create a vehicle that can deal with that conflict, they will be able to deal with the current conflict and any nuances that might come up later. Now they have the vehicle to do that. It's their vehicle that they're going to own and operate. It's not my vehicle, it's their vehicle, and just use it and understand how it could be adaptable."

Question:
Do you try to get new issues on the table?

Answer:
No. Make sure that all the issues are covered at the beginning, and that their dialogue is going to cover enough so that it takes care of whatever the problems are at that time. Then maybe help them look to the future. Don't create things that are not there. You don't want to expand the problem or issue.

Question:
How do you deal with impasses? What happens when you've got one party here saying, "I won't take less than this," and the other party saying, "I won't give more than this," and they're not coming together?

Answer:
I was doing a court mediation case against a federal agency. I'm part of that agency, Department of Justice. It was over an action INS took in a community in apprehending day laborers, and that town's police force helped INS in conducting this action. The plaintiffs felt there were a lot of civil rights violations, such as the fourteenth amendment, first amendment, seizures laws, and all that stuff. They filed a suit in court against the Attorney General, against the Department of Justice, against that city, and against the city's police department. So the plaintiffs asked me if I would mediate it after it had gone to federal court. They all got together, and even though I work with the Department of Justice, they were asking me to mediate. I had worked with a lot of the plaintiffs before. They felt I would be fair and impartial. It's the same idea with being Hispanic, dealing with issues involving Hispanics. I'll never stop being who I am, but I will try to be as fair and as impartial as I can. To be able to help them. When I'm in town they say, "Well are you going to talk to the sheriff?" I say, "Of course." "Are you going to help him?" I say, "Of course. I've got to help the sheriff deal with you, and then help you deal with the sheriff. If I can't do that, then I don't have any business here." In this court case, once we got the judge's okay for mediation, we had a second meeting where some new lawyers came from Washington. The plaintiffs were asking for class designation and for thousands of dollars to pay for their attorneys. The government said, "No, there's not going to be a class designation and we're not going to give you money." They were asking right off the bat for about $600,000. Then said I asked the government, "If you give them $100,000, is that reasonable?" "No." "$50,000?" "No." "$25,000?" "No." "$5?" "No." "Five pennies?" "No." Nothing, zero, no pennies, nothing." So the plaintiff's attorney was there, and he said, "Okay, you're not going to give us class, you're not going to give us a penny, then we're out of here." So they just walked out. I called for a recess and a caucus. I talked to both sides about how important this was. The government wasn't going to give up any money, but what would be reasonable? What would their supervisor and the taxpayers feel was comfortable? But it became a personal matter to them about giving up anything. So now they're playing hardball. Then I talked to the plaintiffs and their party privately about their ultimate goal. Is their ultimate goal getting class and getting money, or is their ultimate goal reaching settlement on correcting the problem they say happened? What are you here for? Are you here to make money, are you here to declare that this is a class action, or are you here to get what you can get for the people you represent? I also said, "Okay, if it's critical to you, think about how much money you want. Also, why don't we put that at the back end of the discussions?" So it becomes issue number twenty instead of issue number one. That way, you all feel you've accomplished a lot if you've accomplished eighteen of the things on your list. Of all the things you really wanted, corrective action on the police department was very important, corrective action by the government. If you get that, then maybe money won't mean as much. Now you've gotten pretty much all that you wanted. And that's how we did it. It involves helping them realize what their true self-interest is. I just helped them through the process of analyzing their interests. The plaintiffs didn't get half a million dollars. That's what they felt they had spent in legal fees. As for the class, they were just defined as one. But everybody got a whole lot of what they came there for. They went to the judge and the judge gave the okay a few months later.

Question:
Was there ever any situations where you felt one of the parties was giving you lip service only and was not genuine in their negotiation?

Answer:
Perhaps, but they made the decision. A lot of times people just want to voice their complaints, they want to be seen as players and taken seriously. We did a mediation in a prison, involving Hispanics, blacks, whites, and Indians. There had been a race riot. In negotiations, the white inmates stopped all discussion because they wanted a tape recorder. They saw the administration using tape recorders and all the other culture groups using tape recorders. So we stopped everything and the next day they had a recorder. After many sessions we asked them, "Who's transcribing all this stuff?" "Nobody, we're just using the same tape over and over." They just wanted to make a point. That's how people are. Another case was in a school setting involving the superintendent, the parents, and a civil rights organization. The superintendent wanted the parents to get to the point. What do they want? Parents didn't want to get to that, it was their opportunity to tell their side, and they wanted the superintendent to know what was happening to their kid and to other kids. The superintendent was not interested in all these details, he wanted solutions. The parents weren't at that level, and the civil rights people wanted to tell the superintendent how bad off these people were. When one wouldn't give in, the superintendent walked out. The parents stayed there, the civil rights person there on their behalf walked out. I got out and grabbed them and brought both back with the understanding that the parents would get to talk for fifteen minutes about whatever ailed them. From then on it was going to be about resolution. And the superintendent said, "Okay, I can listen to fifteen minutes." And the parents said they could say what they needed to in fifteen minutes. We then had an agreement.

Question:
Did you ever have an experience where two parties couldn't meet with the other parties?

Answer:
Yes. The only time it happened was in another town in Texas near Houston. There was a lot of activity over the freeing of an African American that had a death sentence for committing a crime. The black protestors and organizers out of Houston had been doing a lot of activity in support of freeing him. I'd been in this other town and I was coming back and the leader of the black organizers asked me to go with them Saturday, because they were going to have a rally and a demonstration. They were concerned about what they had heard about the Klan retaliating, and what the police might do to them. I picked up the message on my answering machine as I was coming into the office. Later, the police chief called saying, "These people are coming from Houston, there's going to be a big rally, can you help us out?" I never told them that they had each called me. I went out there. I needed to see where the march was going to be and how long they were going to stay. The blacks were meeting in an old college that used to be there during segregation days, but it wasn't a college anymore. The chief wouldn't go over there, and the leader of the black protestors would not go to the police station. They were not going to demean themselves by going over to the other's territory. First, I got the march plan, they're going to City Hall, and the start and end times. So I took all that to the police, here's what they're going to do. Well, they were running a city election the day of the march and City Hall is the polling place. So they can go to City Hall but could not obstruct access to City Hall because people have to vote. If they do, the police were going to arrest them. I went back and let them know that it's okay, except when you're at City Hall there's going to be voting and you cannot obstruct it or they're going to arrest you, so make sure everybody knows the ground rules. There was one glitch once he started the march and they were at City Hall. Somebody was putting heat on the chief to just go arrest them. So I told the chief, give me some time and I'll go talk to them. So I went to the leader who was making a speech right in front of City Hall and these people were really blocking the entrance. I said, "Look, we had an understanding that you couldn't block the entrance and some of those folks are." He may not have seen them because he was talking. He said he just needed two minutes. Then he cautioned them to stay away from the door, and then he continued. But I went back to the police and said, "Two minutes he's going to talk. He's going to tell them not to block the door." And he did. The protest ended with no arrests.

Question:
Those parties never convened at the same location?

Answer:
No, in fact the chief was right there, they were both at City Hall, but the chief never did go talk to the guy, he did it through me. If you're going to take an action let us know first before you do it. Because when there's an action, both sides are likely to get hurt. So it behooves them at some point to communicate, if not through each other than through us. Nobody wants to get hurt, I don't want to get hurt.

Question:
Did your role ever change from case to case, or did you primarily have the same role in each case?

Answer:
The same role with different approaches maybe. But I'm always the outsider, I never tell anybody what to do, they're responsible for what they do or don't do. I can be of assistance to them if they let me. In one town there was a very tense situation, there had been a killing of a black guy, big time national news. I spoke to the officials, mayor, city council members, city attorney, police chief, and then went through all the scenarios of what might happen or what to expect. It depends on how prepared you are to take whatever might happen, ordinances, crowds. It was a Wednesday, I had to be in another town on Friday. The people there said I had a lot of experience in this and they didn't. They asked me to stay. I came back an hour later, I had to call the people in the other town and arrange for somebody to take my place so I could stay for two more days, then I left town. Did that answer the question, what was the question?

Question:
The question was did your role change from case to case?

Answer:
No, based on the circumstances, my approach might change, but not the role. I'm always on the outside, I'm trying to help them help themselves.

Question:
The thing that strikes me as interesting is when we started talking a couple of hours ago, you said that your role was to get the minority group to the table, listening to that I thought okay, he's clearly acting at least to some extent as an advocate or as an assistant who is trying to increase the power of the low power group so that they're on a level plane with the other group. Yet all of our discussion has sounded like you are very careful to play an impartial role and help both sides regardless of their power levels. Did you ever have a problem trying to balance those two?

Answer:
In order to carry on a dialogue, there has to be a level playing field of some sorts. Maybe the community's at that level already, through their contacts. I always understand nothing is new to them, because they have a relationship with each other, there's a history already when we arrive. It's up to us to know the history. Police leaders have asked me, "Why do I have to deal with those folks? Whom do they represent? Just who are they anyway? They're self appointed leaders." I remember in one town, there was an issue over Hispanics' participation in a festival, and the fact that I was Hispanic was an issue. There was a Hispanic organization that was leading the charge. They were not discriminating, the officials said, so why did I have to show up? I explained, "I'm not out here to see if you're discriminating or not discriminating, I'm not going to ask you any questions on that. Yeah, I'm Hispanic, but I'm not a member of their organization, but maybe I can help you with the problems you're having." They say, "Okay, come over, but we're not going to have anything to do with that organization." So once I got there all these organizations that are part of this festival were there. "Which group is giving you problems? You get along with the Elks?" "Yeah, but not with that group." "Would it behoove you to sit down and talk with that group?" But it was to them a coming down to their level and they were not going to appease it by recognizing them as legitimate. So I had to reinterpret that for them. Okay, through me, let's see if I can get them to sit down and again come up with a list of issues and what not. Finally they agreed to come together. When I brought the issues of the responding group, I had to prepare them because they not only wanted to be included as vendors, but they also wanted a seat on the board. And I don't tell them what they should ask for. All I ask is, "Right now, what would resolve your problem here?" That's all I'm interested in. Although I discussed with them what the possible reaction might be. What to expect so they don't get surprised. But even when he wrote on a paper and I took it over to the other side, I told them, "Look, here it is and when you first look at it, you might think they want the moon! But feel confident that they're not asking for Mars and Jupiter, just from here to the moon." Because it's a shock, they want us to give them everything. There's always things they could've asked for then they negotiated on maybe not right then but next year.

Question:
Do you ever approach the authority group and say, you guys have to give us some help?

Answer:
No, it's up to them to decide what they want to commit. I do analyze with them and may give my impression of what the perceptions are of the other side with the understanding that I'm not speaking for them. For example, take A, B, and C. "If they ask for A, B and C what would you think?" "Well, we're never going to give A." "What about A-1?" "Yeah, maybe that. We might consider it." "How about B?" "Well B, yeah we'll give them B." "What about C?" "Well, no we're not going to give them C." I know then what we're dealing with, and then I go to the other side and say, "What if they refuse to give you this? What if they maybe offer you this much? Or maybe this much tomorrow, maybe not the whole bread loaf, but half now and you get the other half later." "Okay, we'll settle for that." But I still bring them together and just bring it up. And they themselves come up with the option a lot of times. But I already did the ground work with that.

Question:
Did parties ever ask you, once you had gained credibility with them, did they ever ask you to abandon your impartiality, and maybe join their party?

Answer:
In the Houston case with the rodeo, afterwards they wanted to make me a lifetime member of the committee, but I couldn't accept. In that case, Hispanics were trying to be part of the structure of the rodeo. The rodeo issues about five or six million dollars in scholarships. Hispanics felt they weren't getting their fair share. The rodeo criteria for scholarships at the time were ones that Hispanics could hardly ever meet. At that time, for the most part, scholarships were being given to students that participated in agriculture and farming orientated programs and Hispanics living in the city, of course, can't raise a cow on Sixth Street, it's illegal. And sometimes that was the criteria for being eligible. That you have to raise a farm animal. There was an impasse for some four or five months before the Hispanic group called me, and I called the management and I got discussions going again. I was managing the process, came up with proposals, and there were objectives to that. We amended the proposals and there were objectives to that. We would meet together, and we would meet separately, but finally they came up with an agreement. The Hispanic position was that the whole rodeo culture contained a lot of Hispanic culture. Even the word rodeo is Spanish. All the terminology used in the rodeo are Spanish terms. Hispanics introduced the idea because Spain brought horses to America back in ancient times, so they developed the culture then adapted it to Western culture and Texas culture. And that's how the rodeo evolved, but they claimed they were being left out as an identifiable group. In their discussions and negotiations they struck a deal. They later changed their name to fit the rodeo structure's naming, so they're the Go Tejano committee but they do scholarships targeting Hispanics, and they could also educate everybody and change their criteria for applications and then advertise that. A million dollars is now being given out because there are a specific number of Hispanics. Also, they created a Tejano Day for the rodeo. They set rodeo records of attendance every year for that particular day, and they got to 60,000 this last year. Now they've added a carnival, and they're into the hundred something thousand. Before we helped to negotiate, they didn't have that. People don't know the history of all that. I myself go to Tejano Day and have never seen more Tejanos, Mexicans, and Hispanics gathered in one place outside of Mexico City or L.A. But they're doing great, they had some glitches a few years ago, but they worked them out themselves. They wanted to give me a lifetime membership and give me some special tickets up front to see the rodeo and I had to turn all that down. So when I retire maybe I'll buy a membership to the committee.

Question:
Did anybody ever ask you to do something while the mediation was on going which you couldn't do? Advocate for them or somehow tilt tables more than you felt was legitimate to do?

Answer:
I can't remember. I try to get from the beginning a clear understanding of what my role is. I remember being in Detroit one time and a Hispanic group said, "Why don't you level with us, why don't you talk to us, like plain language what you're doing and what you're going to do?" I said, "Look you know who I am, I don't know who you are." And I always know I'm being tape recorded, every conversation, so I'm careful what I say. Saying whether I can defend it because you don't know who's out there and who's working for whom.

Question:
Did it happen to you one time and you have been on guard ever since?

Answer:
Yeah, I guess back at the beginning in 1973 or 1974. After Wounded Knee a super looking Indian turned out to be working for many years with the F.B.I., not an agent. He was portraying to be a super Indian, security, militant groups, but I already had adopted this point of view of being careful, but then I looked at the last four or five months, and thought what did I tell that guy?

Question:
How does that effect your job, and the ways that you do your job?

Answer:
It's just a part of it, wherever I go, whoever I talk to. It keeps me really clean that I can back up whatever I tell anybody. I tell them in private and if there's something confidential that they're telling me I always say, "Can I share that information with the other side?" And they tell me yes or no. "Can I even tell them that I'm talking to you?" They say yes, or they'll say no, and I protect that, but I assume you never know. One time I was in Houston and there were some riots with Hispanic and black kids from a school. One teacher was a Hispanic woman who was very active in the schools. I called a meeting with the deputy superintendent, this person, and her advisor (one of the community leaders.) We had the meeting and it was non-productive, because of the Hispanics' opinions, and we terminated the meeting. About two weeks later I'm at the Hispanic leader's house - the advisor, because I meet everyone in their environment preferably.

Question:
The original question was whether or not people ask you to do things that you can't do?

Answer:
Yes, but I explain what I can and cannot do. Two weeks later I'm at the advisor's house. He said, "Hey listen to this" he played the whole conversation of the meeting that we had. I asked him, "How did you record that?" He told me he had a voice activated recorder in his briefcase and every time we talked, it would pick up and start running. So anybody can have a recorder anywhere.

Question:
When you mentioned that the good looking Indian was actually an undercover F.B.I. agent...

Answer:
No, he was working for them.

Question:
Working for them. I'm interested to know is the F.B.I. considered the good thing or the bad thing or do you work in conjunction?

Answer:
We're not law enforcement, and we don't provide them information in the investigative capacity but we work with them a lot in Houston. We do training, and they are part of the training program that we do. When communities have issues that they want to bring forth to them, because they feel that they don't trust their local investigative agency, I make that connection, although I don't speak for the community. I may convene a meeting with them, but I'm not part of that process, I just facilitate it.

Question:
So what was your apprehension after you realized that this Indian was working for the F.B.I., what made you nervous about that?

Answer:
Well, only what I had said. There had been another instance where a group of Native Americans had taken over a facility up in Northern Wisconsin. Their picture was in the paper and I was talking to a law enforcement person in St. Paul, Minnesota. The newspaper said, "Hey, look at this. Look what happened up there. See this guy here? He works for the state police, and that guy works for the sheriff." So you never know, especially in groups that are pushing the envelope. I assume that they're sincere about what they want and what they're doing, but I don't make those judgments, it's the other party that needs to make the judgments. Do they see it as a working group? A group they can work with and resolve whatever issue? I don't make those judgments, they make those judgments. I'm just saying that the way I deal with it, I'm just careful what I say and do. And appear to be doing also.

Question:
Do you say right up front that all of your conversations are confidential?

Answer:
Yes, but with limitations. They know what I'm there for and what I'm doing. In some instances those groups that maybe have a history of committing criminal acts, I let them know I'm still with the Justice Department and if they do something of a criminal nature, I'm duty bound to report it. But tell me only as much as I need to know to help them and help the situation. With that understanding, I don't want to be part of their strategies and I always ask, "Can I make this public? Is this public information?" No matter who I go to. And they say, "You can tell them this, but don't tell them that." And I respect that. If I don't then I'm no good to anybody.

Question:
Had confidentiality ever become a problem?

Answer:
I don't think so.

Question:
Or were you ever accused of breaking confidentiality when you hadn't?

Answer:
Well, one time, in Wounded Knee, when I was inside the compound. Wounded Knee was like a bowl sort of, and the hilltops were controlled by F.B.I. and the U.S. Marshals. The Indians had their positions below. We had to take cover a lot of times because the bullets would come toward us. There were people trying to come in and trying to get out, pretty much all the time, although the feds had guards on the perimeter. One Indian guy, who was very agitated came to me, he had a weapon and was saying that I had spoken on the radio to the F.B.I. or the U.S. Marshals, and that evening one of their people who was going out had been arrested. I said, "Well, first of all, did you see me use the radio by myself?" He said, "No." I said, "Ok it's a policy I have, every time I use the radio I'm within hearing distance of one of you. So you'll know what I'm saying. How do you know everyone who's in here is what they seem to be?" He says, "Oh, yeah." So I got over that, but it was a direct challenge. I got him thinking about what the circumstances might be. But that's why we always were careful, especially when violence is very close and you don't know what can happen. So be super careful that everybody understands what you're there for. Especially in that situation because they were shooting at the Feds, and the F.B.I.. and the U.S. Marshals were shooting at them, and yet we're with them inside, so it's kind of a strange role. The leadership especially needs to know, and we're there at their request, and with their permission. They felt we were essential to working through all the problems they had, and coming up with some finality to the occupation. So they needed us, and all sides needed us, and that's why we were there. We were taking some risks, but we tried to minimize risk. If they called a truce, we would go out there to monitor the truce. That was the only real time I've been under fire.

Question:
Has CRS ever lost a mediator or an employee gotten seriously hurt?

Answer:
I think there was a guy working out of the Cleveland office years ago, and he had been in a riot situation and I think the police knew where he was, but maybe some of the sergeants didn't and they ordered an evacuation. He was not able to get out of the way fast enough and he hurt his back and was in the hospital for a while. There has been other times back in the late 60's where the law enforcement may not have believed who they said they were. They ran into some problems but they weren't hurt. Since we don't get protection, we always have to take care of ourselves. In the sense of knowing where we are, knowing that we're by ourselves. For example, when I was working that little town, every time I would come out it was 11:00 or midnight, I'd check cars behind me or cars in front. I picked this up living in Chicago, when I was there back in the 60's, you're walking down the street at night and see who's up there or who's behind, and if there's a person up there and all of a sudden you don't see the person because they might be hiding behind a building or in an alley. You stay on the curb side and it's just survival stuff that you pick up. The same when you're working in different environments. You analyze the risk and try to go with the best approach and let the people know. When I was meeting with the Grand Dragon and the Imperial Wizard over in this little town, I called the chief I had been working with a lot over the last two or three years and said, "Chief, I'm meeting with your cousins at 3:00 over at this place. I should be out of there about 4:00, 4:30, and I'm going to call you back afterwards. If you don't hear from me, start dredging the bay or something." I was kidding, but at least to let him know where I was going to be and if I turned up missing where he could start looking. You never know.

Question:
Did you ever try to work as escorts, for instance in Wounded Knee did you have a Native American who was with you?

Answer:
Hmm... did you read the reports or what? Yes, there was one time when some of the lawyers for the American Indian Movement were declared "unwanted" by the tribal government, and one of them was ordered out of the reservation immediately. The defense team asked that we escort the guy out of the reservation because they were afraid he would not make it out alive. So then they asked me to escort the guy in my rental car. I took him out of Pine Ridge village into Nebraska where he had some acquaintances. Everybody knew I was going to take him out and I did. The problem is though, it started snowing terribly when I got back into the reservation. Also, a tribal police car had followed us all the way to the edge of the reservation. So I was obeying the speeding laws and everything. When I came back about two or three hours later it was maybe 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, I entered the reservation and it was still snowing. The police were following me then, and I got nervous, and right as we got into the village, out of nowhere came all these patrol cars in front of me, on the side of me, and I couldn't go anywhere. Some of them knew me and I showed my i.d. But then I picked up a radio, and I started radioing into our command post, telling them where I was and told them the tribal police had stopped me. Our guys were asleep. Nobody was minding the phone/radio desk. But I had to let these police think I was in communication because I didn't know what they would do. The next day when everybody woke up, I said, "Hey, you guys never answered."

Question:
Let's talk about training.

Answer:
Most of the training is on the job and learning from more experienced staff. We have had some formal training provided by CRS. As far as training provided by other staff, Dick was really good at that, we would go into a situation and he would ask questions and what have you, and then at the end when it was over we would get together. He would ask, "How do you read it?" So I'd let him know. It was very helpful. First of all, I was reading a lot just like he was reading the situation. But there's some stuff I was overlooking. He was very helpful, and he helped me analyze the information. How to ask questions, and how to ask a question without stating an opinion. And just like you were saying, "I'm Hispanic, right," so the other side would think I'm biased toward Hispanics. But it was a way of asking the question that does not convey a bias. It's a neutral question and it comes back with what information you need. Instead of saying, "Oh that's a beautiful sky, the sky is blue and it's got some white." Well that's my opinion, I would say, "What do you think about the sky?" Or, "A lot of people think the sky is blue." So it's not me anymore, it's a lot of people, it's somebody else. Then I'm still clean as to my position. It encourages that person to give you their perception without my influencing what he/she is going to tell me. And even just the other day I was dealing with some Native Americans in Houston, talking to one of the tribal leaders. I thought I was being cautious, but then my friend, who is Native American and who I've been working with, was with me and he told me later I should ask the question and then wait for the answer. Don't interrupt. Because those elders are on a different time frame so they're thinking about the response they're going to give you. If you get too anxious for them to talk or if you feel like you're wasting their time, then it takes them off what they were going to say. So you can never get really what they're going to tell you or the answers to whatever you're asking them. More than anything when you deal with different cultures, you have to understand how they absorb information, what is the pace that they work in. So he told me I should wait for the answer, and I should not look at them so much, because they're not going to look back at me. And just let them answer, don't interrupt them. I remember meeting with the Vietnamese back in the fishing days, but much later, a new guy had taken over leadership of the fishermen. But they were having problems with the FCC. The Vietnamese were communicating in the emergency channels and playing music and talking in Vietnamese. The problem is that some of the channels are tied into repeaters, which can broadcast all over the gulf or into the Indian Ocean through repeaters and relay's. So the Vietnamese were jumping into those and they were talking locally. But they're being heard in Russia and India, and jamming the emergency channels. The FCC complained so we talked to the Vietnamese about that and we came up with a training program. I met with the Vietnamese fishing leader. Had a dinner with him and a friend, who had helped me with interpreting and translations for many years, and I told this fishing leader that we were going to have a seminar and we needed to invite the previous Vietnamese leader, who I worked with a lot. The next day my friend calls and says that the new leader doesn't want to invite that old leader. I said, "Well, I already called him and left a message for him that we're going to have this workshop and that he should be there." He says, "No, he doesn't want him there." I said, "Why didn't he tell me? We were there having dinner talking about it." He says, "He considers you too much of a friend to upset you and contradict whatever you're saying. Because it's discourteous to disagree with your friend." In our culture, friends say anything they like. You can tell him/her whatever. There you respect your friendship, and I said, "Now I'm in hot water, I've got to disengage myself from already inviting the other guy. If he had told me then I would not have even started the invitation. What should I have done?" He said, "You should've explained the problem the way you saw the problem and asked, would a workshop be okay? Who should be invited?" In other words he would come up with who should come. But in that culture, the friendship got in the way, and it should be the opposite. So we learned.

I remember a case in a little town in Texas, where the U.S. Attorney and the police had canceled a Hispanic weekend festival, because supposedly the Chicanos that were there objected that the band was not playing enough Chicano music. So after around midnight everyone was feeling really good and the guy who objected went up to the stage and knocked the keyboard off the stage. Of course the keyboard player didn't like that, so he jumped after the guy and the police security jumped in and that started the whole thing. I went and talked to the Hispanic group and they started talking about their grandparents, what had happened to their grandparents in those days with the police, the Texas rangers. It was important for them to tell me how it had been, how they had gotten to where they were. But at some point after two hours of listening to what had happened to their parents and grandparents, back in the 20's and 30's, I said, "Look, we could sit for another few hours talking about history and it's very helpful and informative, but we've got an hour and a half left, we need to talk about what we're going to do here. It was critical that I listen to them because that's the only way I could understand them and then they would be able to tell that I was interested in them as human beings.

Question:
Would you bring in only consultants, or use any outside resources to help you during a case or a process?

Answer:
I very seldom use consultants, however I often use other CRS staff. I know a community then it's easy. But we usually make a connection to people they know that I know. In the little town of Texas, I didn't know the mayor, but I called the mayor and set up a meeting with him and he gathered about twenty or thirty ministers. One of them had worked with me eight or nine years before in another town. And he and I worked together. So when we had the meeting he remembered me. He kind of sold me to all the rest, so sometimes I use an intermediary, or if I work with one police chief and I'm now working with a new one, I let the new one know I worked with the other one.

Question:
Did that ever backfire on you?

Answer:
No, I need to be almost certain that it's going to work, before I mention it. I may say I worked with chief so and so, oh yeah we went to school together, whatever. So if I sense that as good, then I claim more about my relationship with police chief number one, to get close to number two. There was a riot among students in a school in Texas, and I saw a security officer by a gate. Half of the students had been dismissed and their parents had come to pick them up and take them away from the school when I saw the security guard engaging some parents in discussion, which was attracting only more parents. I felt that we can't have a group of parents there arguing about this because there might be a problem. I needed to have that security guard stop what he was doing, but I'm not his boss, I cannot order him to do anything. But I talked to the assistant superintendent who was there on-site and I said, "See over there what's happening? That guy's talking to them, and it might be delaying what we all want to happen." And he says, "You're right." I said, "Maybe somebody should tell him that he should just let the parents go," so he then called the head of security, who told that guard he shouldn't be doing that. I borrowed the influence and the power of others. What I stated seemed to make sense to him. And we together analyzed it; he reached the same conclusion I did and he took action.

Question:
So were you ever reluctant to bring in a referral or consultant to your process?

Answer:
No, but only after we were sure of that person's capabilities. I remember up in Illinois, while working with Hispanics and police, we needed somebody who could talk to the police up there about what makes Hispanics tick, especially Mexican Hispanics. A lot of them had moved up there throughout the years and settled. I borrowed a sergeant from the San Antonio, Texas police department, a Hispanic officer who helped me tremendously in educating the police in Illinois on how Hispanics are different. The policing was really the same policing but you had to kinda do it a little different. It helped a whole lot. Recently, a newsletter had the story of the sheriff in Bear County in San Antonio, and I'm reading more and I saw his story and it's the same guy I used as a sergeant almost twenty-five years ago. He got elected sheriff. I called him up. So we were talking about borrowing experts and that's one time that I borrowed someone. A lot of times, as I said earlier, I borrow people's influence or knowledge. So in towns that we don't know anything about, we either mention something that's similar to them about police chief number one, I'll drop that name off to police chief number two and then wait to see what the reaction is, if that was a bad relationship then I don't claim much association. If it was good then I associate myself closer to number one and mention all the great things that we did to be able to have an entry with number two. Regarding training, a new staff person took a trip with me to Oklahoma, and I told her that we are a resource, and sell mediation and conciliation. Like a shoe salesperson that goes out there and starts to sell shoes, the client doesn't have to order white shoes or black shoes or high-heeled shoes or low shoes or gym shoes, but they have to buy shoes. Otherwise, the salesperson is not going to be in business too long. The same for us, we have to engage the community to use our services because we know they can benefit, but we have to have that contract; otherwise we're out of business. Rightfully so, if we cannot help communities then what are we doing? As far as training, of that particular person and others, before we enter the meeting we'd converse, like what do we want, what do we expect, if that person comes back with this, how are we going to respond? Then you ask certain questions. I watch them, and I ask certain questions, you watch both of us, and we gotta walk out with this much, but we're going to see how much we can get. Then after the meeting, we analyze the situation. How did it work? Did we get what we wanted? Did we get more than we wanted? Where does that lead us to now? Then we go to the next one and analyze that, and put it all together, because at some point we have to determine what are we going to do. We know how the community sees it, we know what they think would work, we know what role they want to play, but then what do we want to do about it?

Question:
CRS?

Answer:
Yeah, CRS because we have to quickly, and I would say in any community within the first day, we have to pretty much know what we're going to be doing. Of course it depends on the circumstance, but quickly you have to know what they want.

Question:
Why is that important?

Answer:
Because first of all, time we don't have much time. We operate by ourselves, and a heavy case load. Everyday, people calling, wanting this, wanting that, and to them it's very important. They want to know what are we going to do for them. Here. Now. We have to explain to them we're a one person operation. We don't have any secretaries, we don't have any other assistants, and I need a new copy machine and my computer doesn't work half the time and on and on. But they're not interested in that. So I have to strike a deal regarding our time with them. You get to that point because cases are most of the time not simple. If things were simple they would've resolved them themselves without any help. It's because they reached an impasse or they can't talk to each other or whatever. But we have to respond quickly. If you wait too long, well what's possible then may not be possible later. So we have to kind of strike a deal that this is what we can do, but you have to give me some time. You do this much, and I'll do that much. With community groups, I ask them to do research, find out who else is being affected by this and get them together for me. Rather than me going out there and talking to everybody, they get them together for me, they do this much, they prepare them, they think things through, and that's their assignment for the next meeting. Then I can go somewhere else and I come back later, we get together and we pick it up again. If it's an issue that has to be done that day because of the situation and the circumstances, well then we drop everything aside and just do that. Then make excuses everywhere else.

Question:
Do you ever involve other CRS personnel with your cases?

Answer:
Yeah, in this case last year, it was of such magnitude and we needed to move quickly, so I handled it the first three days. There were going to be events on that weekend so I asked for some help and then I had to leave town. So a colleague stayed there while I was out of town, and took care of other cases that needed to be taken care of. I came back and then he had to attend to his cases that he had left pending. But in the whole region there's three of us. We cover five states and there's always issues happening and we cannot respond to all of them. We can't be looking for work, there's just too much. We can hardly handle the load that comes in.

Question:
You turn down requests because you just don't have time?

Answer:
I try to answer all the calls. Some people are insistent and you know the squeaky wheel. This one minister gave me a call about a week and a half leaving messages, look, "Why don't you call us collect." After I found a little break, a normal day, we set up a to do list things that need to be done. The environment changes right away, somebody calls, they need help now, they need help tomorrow, they need help this afternoon. Some people are going to be meeting here. Can you come to this meeting? Well I can or I can't. Then as I'm talking, more calls are coming in and being put on the recorder. After each call I punch the message machine and there's like about five or six messages, people I met earlier or people calling in for new stuff. So then I respond to the most critical one of those, and I make that call, and fifteen of them are on the line again.

Question:
How does that all work into your job?

Answer:
It adds a lot of stress. It's just hectic all the time. Like my wife gets upset when I'm at home because she wants me to leave it at work. But you can't because your mind keeps working, and the solutions come up or ideas come up and you either jot them down or remember to do this or that. I very seldom now call from the house, and very few people call me at home because I don't give out that number. A funny story is when I first started in Houston, I've been there since 79, this is when I was working with the Klan a lot and the shrimpers. As normal in each of our offices there's an emergency number that people can call and it's usually somebody's home number (or nowadays we leave pager numbers), and about two or three in the morning the phone rings and it's the Grand Dragon of the Klan and he sounded drunk and he had just come out of jail. We'd had him at some meetings before, and he said ever since he went to a meeting, the police had persecuted him and his civil rights were being violated. I said, "At three in the morning? First thing in the morning I'm going to call the chief and see how they violated your rights." He was satisfied with that, and that morning I called the chief, "Chief, I got a call from your 'cousin', he claimed your guys are violating his civil rights." The police chief said, "He was eating at some restaurant and supposedly complained about how they handled his steak, got into an argument and ending up punching the waiter and that's why he was arrested. Did he tell you all that?" "No, he didn't tell me all that. He said your guys are persecuting him." "That ain't the case." When I got to the office I changed the message, no more calls to my house. We get into programmatic things as time permits, but it's mostly crisis response. If there's a crisis, and a crisis is how close people are to violence. That's the determining factor. If they're about to blow each other apart we drop everything and go, or if we think they're about to blow each other apart. If something happened and it could lead to a potential riot situation then we go immediately and analyze the situation. If we think we need help, then we'll call for help. If there's somebody who's not involved in another critical situation, anywhere around the country where they're working, then they become available. So that's priority number one. Then it goes onto to deadlines of things we already committed to, and if there's a deadline coming up, for the mediation I'm doing in Houston, pretty much everything has to be done by the 28th. That's the next big meeting. And there's no excuses. I have a huge work load. For example, I got up at a quarter to five, worked all day until midnight, and was in the office at 7:30 am again today. If you mess up either way, you might as well not come back or ask for forgiveness, try to make amends. They're very understanding. Especially the people I work with, they understand my work load.

Question:
Can you tell over the phone by just talking to somebody who's saying what you ought to do or what you ought to think about?

Answer:
With this minister, that's what it was. It sounded very urgent and he made a lot of phone calls to me. We analyzed the situation and figured that he didn't need me right away. Perhaps he needed the help of this other guy. That guy would help analyze his situation and let him know where he needed to go. He needed more of a community organizer. He says he's got problems everywhere, including police and schools. I can't be tackling that job. That would be five different cases in that little community with the same people. What would I do with the other half of Texas that I'm dealing with? The stuff I already committed to? So I do as many referrals as I can, but with the understanding that if they don't get results, they can call me back. I'll call that other agent and tell him, "Somebody is going to call you, they have this problem, see if you can help them." Because they do that to me too. They send me people, so I help them. It's kind of network with the other agencies; federal, state, local agencies, politicians, community leaders, everybody.

Question:
Who are the agencies that you most often refer people to?

Answer:
EEOC, F.B.I., U.S. Attorney, District Attorney, LULAC, NAACP, school districts, police, HUD, etc. - agencies and organizations that work with civil rights. In Houston, I'm fortunate. I've been here so long that I know all the police leadership, some from back when they were captains or lieutenants, and we work with them. I try to purposely build a relationship with those people coming up, because at some point when they make it to the top, I want to be able to maintain their relationship. Everybody's important, no matter what their position is. You don't know when you might need them or they might need you. You've gotta have that relationship and a high trust level.

Question:
Do you set a minimum or a maximum amount of time involved in certain cases, or does CRS set a time limit?

Answer:
No, it's as long as you stay relevant in the case. At the beginning, I dedicate 100% of my time to a case to find out what's going on. Then once things get going, I work 75% of that case and the community or the parties do 25%. Then I get them into discussion and I'll do 50% of this case. They have to do a lot to prepare the issues. Then, I do 25% and they do 75%. Now they're doing it on their own, and I'm becoming less relevant. After awhile, I'm 10%, they're 90%, then I'm 2% and they're 98%. So from the beginning, I look to see how I'm going to work my way out. I have to have a sense of what it's going to take for me to get out of there. Eventually they're doing all the work.

Question:
How do you know when you're at that 2%?

Answer:
Let's say they sign an agreement. Now they communicate to each other and they don't need to go through me. I just keep checking up on them, call them up, or they call me. You have to program for this when you get in - how you're going to get out? After you're at 75%, what's the next step? Things become clearer when you play a role and you go into action, and then they don't need you anymore. That's essentially what you're trying to do, work your way out of a job in that particular setting. Now they can do it themselves. They're going to have problems, that's the nature of things, but they can work them out themselves. They don't need us. I told the people in this community, "I'm not going to be married to you all." We're very close for the first, two weeks, but then relationships go in different directions. This happens on purpose. "I'm not going to be as available, I won't be bugging you so much. You're going to see less and less of me." There's also the danger of you staying too close to them for too long. They'll ask you, "You've got nothing else to do? Why are you here with us? W