Mediator Interview Topic - Did you have any continuing professional relationships between CRS and community people after a case was "closed?"

Did you have any continuing professional relationships between CRS and community people after a case was "closed?"

Angel Alderete

Question:
How do you decide when to end an intervention in a community?

Answer:
Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes they become a part of you, and you have a heck of a time breaking away. Even if you say, "This is it," you'll still find yourself calling to see how things are going. And when you travel somewhere, you always try to do a site stop to see how things are going. Even today, I still call the folks at the Department of Corrections. But I don't call them to find out how they're doing, I just call them to talk with some of the guys I know. With the Native American community, although I haven't done it in six months, I keep in touch with the guy who was then the director of the California Association of Indian Tribal Leaders and I stay in contact with the Shasta County Sheriff's Department.

Manuel Salinas

[Full Interview] [Topic Top]

Answer:
Utah has a Hispanic representative or Hispanic aide, so we started working with the police department and the Hispanic aide, and the Hispanic aide then worked closely with the chief. So he became our contact, he became our source of information, how things were going. Without our necessarily being there. That office played a significant role after things quieted down. He was under the governor's office. He or she works throughout the state. He became our contact thereafter, and we didn't even know that existed until we went in on that case.

Question:
So is it also accurate to say that in this case and the first case you described, that you built relationships with people that you maintained afterwards as part of your follow up?

Answer:
Primarily, I kept a strong relationship with that Hispanic aide. He's supposed to know what's going on in the state, and since Utah has only three or four major cities, large cities, that's where most of his work was. If you read his job description, he basically was doing what we would do. We got into some education problems later, and he identified who to work with, what professor to work with at the school or what teacher to work with at the school. Other concerns surfaced. For example, there was a city north of Salt Lake, where there was a housing problem with migrants. There was inadequate heating and the homes were sweating on the inside during the winter. It was bad construction. The people were complaining, and there was no resolution. He then began to identify problem areas, and asked us to help them figure out what was going on.

Question:
So you build a mutually supportive network.

Answer:
Yes.

Angel Alderete

[Full Interview] [Topic Top]

I worked at Santa Maria and I had a difficult time breaking away from there, because I...maybe I identified with them. You know, you do your job, and you like the folks so much, that you hate to leave. Their honesty, their intent to do what's right, their ability to do shenanigans when they're called for and not be concerned about whether they might get arrested for it or not. Anyhow, sometimes you never do.

Leo Cardenas

[Full Interview] [Topic Top]

Did CRS have any long-term involvement in it, or did you leave after the settlement?

Answer:
No. While CRS had an office in Denver and had relationships with both parties, the reality is that CRS did not then, and does not now have the ability to do follow-up, except on a very limited basis.

Question:
Why's that?

Answer:
Lack of resources and, of course, staff.

Copyright © 2000-2007
by Conflict Management Initiatives and the Conflict Information Consortium

Beyond Intractability maintains this legacy site as it was created in 2007 with only minor formatting changes made in conjunction with the posting of Phase II of the Civil RIghts Mediation project in 2025.