we could and what I want to do there's a there's a deep dive into some issues that we will probably not probably but we'll take issue and we'll have more just conversation on that particular issue I want to go I want to start with number two I want to start with number two Mr. Sally is not here he's on his way and I don't want to just wait wait on him I've asked I've asked Logan to kind of walk us through the document now please know that of course conversation with the mayor we sort of started this conversation prior to a little bit after what happened in December at the colony we felt like there was a real need for us to take care of our tenants simple as that now we understand though after conversation with others that there's still a deep dive into issues that we have not talked about what I want to do and of course what the mayor wants to do is to make sure and ensure that we get this ball rolling so I've asked Logan to come walk us through this what I've read and what I sense is that this is not this is not new at all this is just of course there's a enforcement piece there that we really need to talk about what we're looking at is not anything new this is information the other piece of course is this is about our residence this is about residents and we want to make sure and ensure that we take care of them so Logan if you would walk us through this absolutely and and defer to Dana on some of the legal specifics because she's in Dana you're here with the experts but the general concept here is that we wanted to give tenants a document that let them know their rights talking about the colony in December a lot of people that y'all ran into there didn't realize that they had somebody they could call and if they did know they could call they were worried about the consequences of doing that right we talked a little bit yesterday you and I about how the incentives of the colony were kind of out of whack in terms of you know it became more important to keep the spot filled for the landlord than it did to take care of the spot where the tenant was and make it do you in that in that framework would you talk some about project versus tenants rights yeah the colony operates under project-based vouchers which mean you know the money is essentially tied the vouchers tied to the unit to our conversation about incentives the the incentive there is to take take care of and fill apartment versus take care and fill councilman McDowell you know uh so the incentives there's the fear of retaliation especially when we look at the situation in Colombia where there's what I've heard is a five-year wait on the right now to get into housing so as opposed to it being tennis tenant based vouchers where they would have the portability and the option to move around if there was something that you know it's different about the that they didn't like about the place they live they didn't have that choice and then on top of that they were worried about being bumped to the back of the list or even worse getting a bad recommendation getting something putting their file that would prevent them from getting housing so this idea kind of it's not new to Colombia a lot of cities have it um DC has it I used it myself in Washington DC their office of the tenant advocate um Hillsborough County Florida has a great example I think Dallas Texas might be the other one that's got a really good one and basically they took in DC for instance they had to make a bunch of standards for tenants to live by here we don't have that problem because the standards already exist it's just informing people what those are and what the avenues are for remediation so I think that's kind of a general overview of it the ordinance just requires that uh any landlord that has a lease whether verbal or written with a tenant has to keep one of these on file for every tenant that they have and um as you alluded to the hole that we have to fill here is how do we enforce it and what are the rules for doing so see right now that's the biggest hurdle the biggest hurdle right now is of course getting this ball rolling the biggest hurdle becomes how do we enforce it and we have not honestly talked about that again and I don't want to be redundant at this point but again we just want to get it started because there's going to be continued conversations Peter I think you raise a real significant uh uh concern issue is that it's no need in having something having an ordinance on the book and there not be anything behind it to enforce it and of course that enforcement piece becomes critical I think and the enforcement on this would be the you know the consequences of not having this signed document on file for every term that's great um so it's not like you know we're enforcing code any changing anything that we would do otherwise but this is just you have to have this on file and prove that you've shown it and a tenant has acknowledged but you also but also they need to have a copy of it yeah understand it I mean like the average person is not gonna I mean it took me a second to read this and and that's my concern is I want people to regardless of their literacy level or background be able to truly understand what their rights are and you know oftentimes you just sign you just sign a lease right so there's gonna have to be some efforts on our end uh as it once this is passed for us to translate it in a way that people really understand what their rights are so Logan was the goal really for this document to be the document that the resident has not so much the ordinance more so the document this document has this and I think there's a requirement in here that if it's a dwelling of 25 or more it has to be posted in a common area as well yeah and and I just made that up completely but that was for instance Hillsborough County Florida does one that's just a front and back um and the information on the front and then the back contains just phone numbers and places and resources for them to call and then they get you know a place to sign and then the landlord keeps a copy okay so the ordinance itself they would never have to see okay that's helpful I was like this is so it's a much planer yeah I tried to make it as plain as possible and of course we'll have to figure out you know your first step is figuring out what you want them to know what you want what is important for y'all to include in the notice for instance we just did a reference to the landlord tenant act we told them the the references to it must be fit for habitation so the code sections there it gives them so it has to be really then a dualistic in nature yeah yes the piece of paper that they get is largely just a reference it's a who do you call you know when you move to to columbia you get a list that says if your trash isn't picked up here's the phone number for the trash company yeah phone number for the water company this would be very much the same thing you know we put the uh legal assistance telephone number for illegal services we've got the law line the HUD number um there's also the housing official so david hatchers group if there are code enforcement violations here's the 545 number that you call that would be what they would get and sign you got it and if you have that's helpful and if you have multiple units if you have a bigger set like colony the requirement in the ordinance is that they post it that's great so that it stays you know like in a hotel it stays on the back of the door this would stay on the refrigerator or whatever it is and that they would have that availability the ordinance itself just is what y'all would pass to require and enforce the landlord to provide this i think it's important the first step is super important and may mean more than we think it does just a formalization of this common sense human rights absolutely handshake absolutely between the tenant and absolutely the landlord yes sir i think i think i think it's i don't i'm i might be over hyping it but i think it's important and and how we message this to people is super important so that they know this is going on and they understand that that this is a contract between the tenant and the uh one way street it's not just they just don't pay rent and then you know and the landlord gets off scott free it's there are there are responsibilities on both sides we know this is going on we see we see this and it's i think formalizing it is super important in the process that's correct but it becomes a dualistic it becomes a dualistic process the land the landlord has a responsibility and of course the tenant tenant and the renter has responsibilities the other piece of that is the ordinance has to be the ordinance has the ordinance has to be written in such a way that is simplistic that is understandable even if you post this on management's door it has to be something that the average john q public can read understand and know that they have right yeah one thing i would just mention that dana pointed out very early on and i think it's important to dr basal's point is the uh we need to graphic design this and i mean it's got to be like headers cool that's on logon right away i said i'm no graphic designer i said you have a whole department i can do that i said i can put it in columns or you can put it in but i can't make so i um i agree that this is a great step but i also think to counsel men mcdallas point to pass this without any sort of enforcement mechanism put in would make it fall short because we've seen how that's ended up for some of our residents at the colony right there are a lot there are a lot of laws in place that were violated and you know we're we're still kind of dealing with the brunt of how much of our resources as a city we're taken up from trying to deal with the colony so what would your suggestion be in terms of enforcement i know on at a municipal level it's very limited in terms of fines um but also this is a very serious thing and we've seen how it's affected people's everyday life so you know is it that we say that if this is not given you have to pay the five hundred dollar fine it there are three-way resident three ways that y'all can go about it you can and the way that i did it is the most stringent when i set this up i just listed it shall be unlawful anytime that language is in an ordinance of yours and it says it shall be unlawful that is a criminal penalty punishable with a a fine city court and that's up to five hundred dollar fine you can criminalize it that's one you can make it a civil infraction like we like y'all did with the smoking ordinance and things like that and make it just a civil penalty which doesn't carry a criminal citation along with it or you can assess points under your rental permit if you wanted to say if you violate this that's a violation for purposes of your rental permit you get a point every point cost you money so many points we can shut you down that kind of thing or you can do some combination of of all of them that's the question for y'all to decide and when Logan and I were talking about that's really where y'all gotta give input and figure out what you're comfortable with making it criminal civil or you or or points well one of the one of the things that I think is very very necessary and that is we're not going to do all that today what's going to take place of course is common and aggression of things that we are progression of things that we really need to take care of my particular interest and concern I think as it relates to this committee is to make sure that this emphasis gets on the table and to talk about it and there has to be some strategizing and prioritizing we understand that but we also understand in order to do that there has to be some pieces of the puzzle that are outside of the puzzle itself and we make we need to make sure that we latch into those things and that's that's the emphasis and that's that's what I think is going to be it's not going to be easy it's going to be some some real conversation about enforcement about fees about whether it's criminal or civic whether it's a civil violation or whether it's a criminal violation what are the fees that we haven't talked about and my emphasis of course is to make sure that we get it on the table right now we don't have anything on the table so would your suggestion be that we move this to a work session with larger council to decide those things I think what we probably need to do and you all help me with this what I really would prefer doing is letting us hash this out and then carrying it to the larger council in a work session to kind of see where they are with that so and I was going to say I think from an enforcement standpoint we want to make sure that the enforcement is pro tenant so that's great you know the last thing the tenant wants is to be thrown out okay so so that's the first thing we want to make sure is that we're not punitive to the point where we get we get that unintended consequence of eviction yeah or or or my place is no longer they throw me out because now it's in have uninhabitable so so what we want is we want something in place that's going to help the tenant get the needed repairs in place up without shutting them down or throwing them out so so I think my preference would be to start off slow and ramp it up so I would my preference would be to focus on money in civil and eventually go to criminal if you have to but but you know to give to give the landlord owner enough time to make the fixes per this and and so give him to get plenty of chances so something bad happens later on down the road you go I mean you had 10 chances to to make this right and you chose not to which means that you weren't going to and that goes that's that's parody not that bad apple that we know is out there but but I'm a I'm a believer in people so I don't believe that everybody's a bad apple so but and then the other thing to to that point is we want to make sure that this fine doesn't somehow trickle down to the tenant right that's true and it's factored into their rent which has happened a lot so really making sure that the language is clear that this is something that must come from you know the owners of the of the dwellings and then that's that's an important that's an important piece remember this is a lack of a better word this is a human rights issue and of course if we don't pay and give special attention to those persons who find themselves in a real credulous situation we need to make sure that they understand perhaps what they are signing what are the consequences because it's human rights man and if we don't if we don't look at this as a click very well be our human rights about what has taken place because we don't have anything on the books now we need to just make sure we take care of our brothers and sisters simply as that now it's going to take other it's going to take other forms of conversation we're going to look at the pieces of this puzzle and try to interconnect them but it's not just we just can't do it and happenstance we've got to do it very intentionally making sure making sure that our residents are taking care of residents and renters are taken care of how do you move into an apartment and you've got more in that apartment and there's no there's no way for that person to say to the landlord to the landlord hey man I think you need to do something with this piece probably there's nothing there so we're going to take a little time we may need to eat lunch several times but it's going to take some time for us to kind of hash this thing out and then we need you to if you could simplistically sort of give us some real some real simple language I see Tom see the dog jump you understand what I'm saying it doesn't need to be language it's and this one is for is fairly simple we you know we tried to get it and you're absolutely right it is simple but for the average resident they're gonna find it some will find that difficult to read and understand and there is only so much we can you know we can do or the landlord can do to provide that the best thing y'all can do is decide what you want in it what you want to make sure they're aware of whether that's housing violations where to call for code violations where to call and then you know the way the ordinance is set up is the landlord is the one cited so it's always a citation to the landlord but you all ran into that issue in in colony yeah and so that kind of bodes against your question is what do you recommend criminal is difficult for and you found out in the colony situation trying to hold somebody criminally responsible means you have to serve the person there are all sorts of rules and regulations that go with that whereas had if you assess a civil infraction or if you assess a points violation under their rental permit there is less of a requirement under the due process rules to actually get it in the hand of an absentee landlord so then councilman my question then is what are the other examples that you gave from the other counties and cities they typically do a point system what did you see out there well they had they they were split in terms of whether they held them violation you know like a criminal violation but a lot of them were civil infractions were were monetary penalties i would i would pro sort of like the smoking thing or if you get caught with doing that it's a civil infraction you get a two hundred dollar fine and then the fines escalate or whatever that is but it did not invoke all of the the needed criminal due process by putting the service and you know you can mail it to them you can send it to the address of the the the agent for service process so you can get them that way you don't have to personally serve them so criminal is more difficult and buys you a little bit more headache and perhaps it may actually do the opposite of what you want what you want to get to get to work i mean you don't want somebody you know we're not looking to put people in jail we're looking for them to fix up their properties now sometimes that's the only way to i get it right but that's that's that's uh that's down the road when when when the when you're able to say we tried really hard and you wouldn't do it and there are ways to do that you know for multiple different things but if i were recommending try to make it as simple for enforcement as possible and that would be a point system or a civil infraction or something along those lines to do that but it is it goes just with the landlord so your first step is to kind of figure out what you want to make sure they're aware of what is great that you want them to know um because there's a lot of stuff out there do you want them to know about the idea you want them to know about anti-federal anti-discrimination statutes or are we more focused on habitability and more focused at the local level and some of the local things that's such would be my if you if you look at this the the thing you want to highlight for the for the tenant is this which is a landlord must comply with you know so that's everything else everything else is you know if higher right everybody kind of understands that there are some anti-discrimination things out there so if we focus on keeping this at the local level there are some things that we can you know we can put in there and and if there's something that's missing let us know we're happy to add it and then the ordinance itself if we want if y'all decide you want to sort of decriminalize it and make it more of a civil infraction um then i can go back and alter some of the language and make it if i think the burden becomes when you criminalize it it makes it tougher it tremendously too uh and that's some of the hurdles that we need to talk through to talk about um i guess consensually what we need to do is to perhaps look at this see if there's anything missing yeah well it's too long first time well it's is one page because we tried to keep washington dc me washington dc and dc's is like five pages long and i said there is no way folks are going to read a five page document we got to keep it i think graphic design will make a big difference in the yeah you got this paragraph right here that sort of outlines and says simplistically what the rights of that resident is now uh it's i'm sorry i'm sorry yes ma'am the reason though if dc's is that a template which is great but one of the questions i have because of the properties that we year 10 and they deal with of late have some time the owner does to a hud specific regular that's what you say that's or state house so i'm not sure if what came from dc is that during and some of that because as much as we want to put this out to the residents that are most impacted and most vulnerable some of them are also tied into these owners absentee or not that are that's where the funding mechanism is so are there is whatever's in here it was not criminal even if it's civil is the federal government going to allow them to to sign off on something and i don't want us to be want us to be careful about how we're saying what we're saying and what we're putting out to the public is that it's a end all and then on a local level it's not something we can really regulate anyway because of the nature of the property and how the property is regulated most of this is set up so that it is purely notification we are not so we're not adding a layer of regulation that doesn't already exist so the ordinance you know we're not coming in and saying we're creating new standards for any of that that they would not be able to agree to we're not changing any standards all that we're doing with this is saying this is what this is what you have to be aware of give the right to have a habitable habit location you have to have you know heat running water maintain good safe working order here's the section that tells you what your what the standard is you don't have it here's the 545 number for the housing official that's you know i think as long as the city house city house yeah if they're in the city so if if it's it's the case where all we're doing is telling them here are the numbers here are the resources before you got it i said it's sort of like when you move into the city you get a little thing that says here's the number to call if your garbage doesn't get picked up here's the number to call if your water isn't working that's essentially what this is for some of these things i don't think we would be running afoul of any of their contractual responsibilities to hud or any of that i think the reason dc was so big it's because they have a more you know a population of folks renting that have more of resources to begin with so it really took a deep dive into what the standards for mold is i don't think we want to get that specific because we don't want to be given a legal advice we don't want to be trying to keep up with the standards as the standards change we just want to tell them here's where you go to get the standards and as those standards are updated and implemented that reference will still be valid and to be honest with you you know we do this at work a lot you know the best thing to do is we need to put something like this in place to start off with tenant rates 101 or just tenants rates 404 um so i'd rather keep it as simple as possible and as as time goes on you know things don't work out or we gotta do something different we can always do something different make it more sophisticated if that's yeah but i do understand what you're saying educational piece is great i'm hearing some comments about enforcement and civil penalties and all that so that's where i'm trying to understand as a city what would we be enforcing it's on they have to keep this document signed on file like sign notification that you gave this to a tenant and so we took it dc was one example we used hillsborough county florida was another which i think is tampa i can't remember but um they just sign off and say you've been provided a copy of the notes so you have a copy and they keep it down we're doing is formalizing a handshake with a signature correct well all we're doing is notifying them that they have been provided this information that if there are problems or concerns here's correct we're formalizing we're formalizing what somebody should tell somebody verbally yes and but they're likely not doing that or may not be doing that who knows but all we're doing is formalizing it with a signature yeah and when you move into a neighborhood you get your little goodie basket that says here are your hoa rules and regulations this will be very similar welcome to the complex here's a notice of you know sort of where what the resources that are available to you if there are questions or concerns they sign off on it as having received a copy and that's all we're enforcing we are just enforcing the landlord providing them a copy it's not like we're gonna go around yeah you know livable standards are not being kept and we've been put in these positions to do that much bigger discussion and all of that but I do think because of that there's a lot of attention to what the city's been doing in that regard and I would hate for this to be misconstrued as something more than what you just described yeah because this is just a notice well thank you put us in a position I mean we're already in a position where we need to talk through some of these some of these concerns and talking through some of these concerns cannot be done in short just a short conversation while it is critically important to have that bill of rights for our for our residents and for our for our renters it's also clear to us and clear to me that we just cannot arbitrarily put something on the book and not have all of the information whether it's whether it's code enforcement whether it's enforcement of these issues what standardized do we what standard do we use to make sure that we got everything included before we take that second step and a part of that part of this step now is to have continued conversation and that's the thing that I'm going to suggest is that we continue this conversation Logan Dana continue this conversation with the committee and of course as we work our way through this is that we do it as thoroughly as we possibly can and not do not do it not do a short term resolution for something that could possibly come back to bite us so rev can I also suggest to you that maybe we ask them to bring language back for us to look at our own enforcement yes ma'am yes ma'am can we do that uh Logan if you could do that Dana if you could do that that other piece in terms of this you want to do it as a civil infraction or points well instead of criminal I was the ordinance currently is is criminal well I would prefer we do it civilizing I do too then I'll get you a new comment could we do that and the next time we meet could we have those two documents so that we could sort of peruse it and talk through that all right well let me ask my committee persons is that consensual yes can we do that yeah good work all right thank y'all thank y'all so much thank y'all thanks man you don't have to leave but you can't I'll let y'all get to it people's business thank you Logan thank you sir Dana you gonna stay with us are you leaving Louie she's leaving sorry we got tk oh we got tk oh yeah all right where's brother sally brother sally yes coming forward my brother we've got we've waited on you so you need to provide us with with lunch I had I had some more time I certainly would have done that don't give me the excuse I will uh just like I promise I will make that happen for my friend and my counselor thank you everybody you want one third sim yep where are you where are you all right Larry come on you can sit down anywhere wherever you like you can sit right here if you like all right no one's sitting about a council person oh no I got you where you can't leave now well uh as long as you don't you don't torture me no problem let me uh you got it okay you got that okay one of the things that Larry of course is our executive director for our CRC community relations council uh we've had some conversation with with Larry and of course with the mayor and with other members on your board uh the mayor very enthusiastically uh wants to see us do more than for lack of a better word what we've been doing um several years ago for lack of a better word that was a blue ribbon committee that was for one and of course that committee looked at the race and equity index and how that was impacting our city uh after we got after we got the results of that the data the data of course uh it was determined that we needed to go a step further and of course in conversation with the man of course with you and with other members of the board and Mitch Ruby I think uh it was decided that we do this thing in the Midlands you remember that we do this thing in the in the Midlands and of course it was decided upon by county council that they wanted to do something separate is that right well they're undecided but uh but that's what they wanted to do right yeah but we're moving here that's right and so the mayor and in conversation with with you uh it was decided upon that we focus our attention on the city of Columbia and of course we provided we provided we provided with you the the data that we had referencing the race and equity index I think we provided to each one of our council persons that information and I think at the time because the mayor wanted to do something in Richland County we're looking at somewhere in total of about a hundred and some thousand dollars I believe hundred and twenty thousand dollars after it was narrowed down and we looked at only Columbia uh the suggestion was made let's do and let's look at 60 thousand dollars am I am I saying it right that's correct okay 60 thousand dollars um and of course we did that I think it was approved by council but it was approved by council I think Ms Wilson with some with some it was a caveat thing that we talked about deliverables because we knew this was coming to your committee to talk about deliverables so that the contract reflects exactly what you all want okay but it is on your agenda for Tuesday all right well I'll talk if we and I'm sure you are going to move forward today so well that's my uh Ms. Wilson I guess that's my aggression in this thing over and done with you do have consensus though you have at the work session all of us were in favor of moving forward with it but just wanted to know the details the formal council approval yeah it needs to happen we'll be on the second thank you thank you ma'am and I apologize for pushing that up beyond our agenda uh I want Larry Larry talk to us um you got a slide presentation here yes you please introduce your board well well I appreciate that um I of course uh thank you for having us uh as Reverend McDowell said I'm Larry Saley the executive director of the Greater Columbia Community Relations Council and the council itself has been in existence since 1964 I haven't worked with it since 1964 but I do feel like it today I have with me my board chair uh Janika Far there on the end she's uh been a part of all of our conversations I think we started this process in February 2021 um we were certainly pleased to be engaged in this also brought a longtime volunteer and staff member Lynn Hutto she's uh been in integral to the work that we do here so what we wanted to do was take a few minutes talk about our strategy in trying to address some of the findings and the data that's contained in the report um what I'll say is uh first of all in 2021 you know we talked with former mayor Steve Benjamin and uh one of the former council members Tamika Devine they introduced us to the report um as soon as uh as soon as we saw at Mitch Willoughby and I you know recognized that this was the type of thing that the CRC was essentially created to do the CRC has been engaged in working in communities around the Midlands particularly here in the city of Columbia uh for uh what are the 59 years Lynn is that right yes 59 years she keeps me straight on dates um for 59 years and you know our uh our motto a tagline is uh advocate educate and mediate um our uh specialty has been to uh conduct community engagement create community dialogue you know try to address some tough issues and of course help to uh resolve those with solutions you know when you talk about uh race and equity as we know in our society today that's that's a challenge a lot of communities are dealing with that um we've got uh individuals that uh are have been appointed to our board who are very well versed very well vested in this community and in our mission as you can see of course our mission is to serve and promote harmony mutual respect and justice through uh dialogue educations programs and resources this particular program is going to be an extension of uh some of the work that we've done we're actually kind of I guess putting it under our community education fees because it's about educating it's about informing and of course trying to uh have folks come to the table and you know understand that you know until we create a situation that is fair and equitable to everyone it holds back our community um let me go over to let's see this board members uh we're going to be having our celebration I'll tell you about that and just a little bit but we're hoping that all of you will join us um but you know when you talk about racial equity um that's um that's something that's something that's somewhat elusive a lot of times people confuse equity with equality of course equity means fairness you know and you know oftentimes we tell ourselves and we may even tell our children that uh life is not fair but uh you know as local government as community uh as community of agents and of course as Christians you know we want to try to promote the concept of fairness we want to try to see that uh everyone has a fair shot to be able to take care of themselves and their families um this particular effort has been undertaken by many communities I was surprised in doing my research how many other cities have already completed uh plans have already instituted some policies um there are cities here in South Carolina Charleston Greenville Spartanburg they they're uh much further along than uh than we are at this point but I do applaud the city and the city leaders for undertaking this because as as I said this took a lot of vision and it certainly took a lot of support to be able to come and you know try to make this happen um essentially uh the report is very detailed I had a chance to sit down and talk with uh the author uh Dr. Brady um her data is very solid um you know I've reviewed her data gone over of other reports um the information the sources uh were very solid I mean the information that we have just uh on the health side of the report largely mimics the information that was recently compiled with uh MUSC and Lexington Medical as well as Prisma Health's community health assessments so this uh this is right on point in terms of where they're going and one of the things that is spelling out is that you know there are a number of disparities in the area in this community um a number well a lot well you know there are a lot you know more than a few but you know we you know we we want to be you know we want to be uh generous in terms of how we work with communities I think uh working with the CRC to be able to implement this project uh is the proper way to go primarily because um you want to take uh adverse uh entities out of the process you want to have a place where people feel comfortable to be able to share to be able to to uh create ideas we have relationships across the community the business sector community leaders uh church leaders and we are um working to bring all of those individuals together um some of the data some of the data that uh cited I mean uh when we talk about poverty when we talk about income you know one of the things that first struck me in the data uh was uh life expectancy and um I think uh one of the pieces and I don't believe this right in this particular slide indicated that uh as a as an African-American man living here in the city my life expectancy isn't uh more than 68 years well you know I'm hoping that's not the case I will say that my mother celebrated her 90th birthday last week so um yeah so we uh and she still lives independently she still drives you know I'm taking I'm trying to make sure she's good but uh I'm hoping that I can get some of those years but uh you know when you see those kinds of numbers and then you look over in lexicon county it goes up to about 72 years and of course it's a little different for females you know that that's those are things that that that hold back our community the other uh statistic that really uh surprised me at the time and you know I know them so well um income you know in the city of columbia uh whites earn 110 percent more than blacks in uh for latino or hispanic communities it's about 113 percent more you know those kinds of things hold back our community we cannot enjoy you know the the full benefits of economic growth and prosperity without uh trying to address those issues and what I do understand about that is this it's not just a city problem it's a community problem you know this is not something that the city of columbia can take on and achieve by itself what we're talking about doing is bringing a cross section of individuals to to look at these disparities we're going to sort through those and we're looking at the most serious ones uh when we had our conversation with the mayor he was uh pretty adamant that uh you know he understood that we could not take on all of the uh topics and issues that were addressed there they may have to come in a another phase but as you can see these are the uh areas that were addressed uh income wealth and poverty employment housing and democracy criminal justice health uh environment and education i'm uh you know i'm a product of uh of the columbia area and of course the area school so in every place i go you know i tell people all the time i said i'm a columbia kid i grew up here of course my mother was uh was a nurse at prisma my father was in the military and we had a good life i've always considered columbia to be safe you know and i like to feel as if you know uh we all have have had you know reasonable opportunities to be able to take care of ourselves advance and get careers in education but you know that's not true for a lot of uh people of color just curious what you're the high school um i'm a district two product uh i went to spring valley high school and then they were kind enough to open richard northeast high school so i decided i wanted to be the first uh the first class over there and i was a long time ago my wife went to richard northeast she did yeah what year uh um i'm uh i see them looking uh actually uh the class of class of 79 okay so pam would have graduated in 84 okay she's a little bit behind you okay okay yeah she uh northeast was started that earlier yeah yeah it uh when i started there wasn't even finished you know we scored uh always it was nothing you pass on your courses oh yeah i i i didn't even come from that kind of and i even drove the school bus uh i was a student driver so you know we still talk about that i remember making two dollars and ten cents an hour i think all her sisters wouldn't spend dollars there she's the only one of them right there she probably knows a lot wow um one of the things that came out of the report um as you see in the overview it indicates uh that uh racial inequities of course exist in just about every community and that's true you know the research that we've done we've seen it uh Fairfax, Virginia, Seattle, Charleston, Sumter i mean those they're they're gonna exist wherever you have uh individuals who don't have the same opportunities you're going to have inequities um you know sometimes people feel as if uh um the numbers uh i guess say certain things but where we have uh looked at uh prosperity of course that means that uh if there's lower prosperity of you know uh more diversity there's going to be more uh inequities more disparities so we're trying to understand those numbers um one of the things that we found is to remove those barriers and promoting inclusion equity you know that's necessary in order for us to have a full strong community what we propose to do is to uh of course partner with the city of columbia to um create uh what we call the midlands race and equity initiative which would address the overall area and we want to work directly with the city within the uh geographic boundaries of the city to uh operate the race and equity project which would be a mess a mess a mess or something what has been or has there been any results of a conversation with the county uh we whether or not they are applicable and amenable because we initially want to do this collaborative that would be that that would have been any come I heard you say that they uh they hadn't done anything yet well we had uh I actually called um uh the chairman uh Chairman Walker and uh we had a direct conversation and he told me that uh he was not opposed to working with uh this effort uh you know he said that he really had not had a chance to get into the uh the data but uh that he wants to try to arrange a meeting with uh Leonardo Brown the county administrator I spoke to Mr. Brown probably two weeks ago and we're trying to see if we can work out a meeting but I do think there is uh some appetite to participate in this I think somewhere down the road I'll probably uh sooner than later I think initially what we what we found is because the report was commissioned by the city I think folks wanted to see if the city was going to step forward and put some skin in the game you know we kind of talked to individuals but they were we were getting some of the same feedback that you know they wanted to understand where you all were we told them that you know council has uh has certainly supported it and that we were working out uh some sort of agreement but I think now that we have something on the table that we can share with him okay you know I think that would be helpful and I also think that maybe having yourself or or um uh Mayor Rickman uh call uh the chairman of county council and uh Mr. Brown that uh that probably would expedite that process I've talked to several of the council members uh Gretchen Barron is our liaison and she's been carrying a lot of water for us and they are very um in tune with uh what we're trying to do I've sent them copies of the report they understand it you know honestly uh that would allow us to be a little more effective in the work that we're doing because the city and the county are so interconnected I also recently shared the summary with the lexington county administrator of Mr. Sturkey uh and uh we're setting up a meeting uh as well because of course that that is uh that end of it has been stalled I don't know if they have the resources to do it we're trying to look at maybe a conversation with uh the lexington medical foundation to see if they might be willing to support financing uh the other end of that but it would give us an opportunity to really have a robust kind of uh of project where we could get input because the only the only uh concern that we have is the economies of all three municipalities are interlinked in a lot of ways and it would benefit us if we were all moving you know um at least in the same direction hopefully in the same step and until we can get that linkage established I think we need to move forward with what we got I agree and it's better to have a new pair of shoes here than the thing I want another pair of shoes over there that's right that's right I would think that we continue that conversation with the other municipalities but to move forward with our city's emphasis on equity and grace uh let's continue that conversation if they want to join in that's fine I mean the more the merrier the g is uh if we wait to other municipalities to do what we've already done here in the city it's gonna make it's gonna take a volume as it's gonna take volume as time to do that that's that's correct so if we could push forward with what we got but keep your hand on the steering wheel making sure that we at least got have conversation with the other two uh we'll certainly do that uh that that's the charge that the board is more or less giving me um they've been anxious to move forward um we actually had the first in the series of workshop scheduled for last week uh we ran into some scheduling conflicts with uh Prisma uh Prisma Health and with uh MUSC and uh the city manager called me uh because she had saw some information on that and uh I uh just indicated to her that that we actually had that plan before we had gotten the communication from you all about about the agreement um but the good thing is that it's a mood point I was on the phone with our partners today about trying to reschedule it I told them about this meeting so we're trying to put it uh put the health portion of that form together for the hopefully the early part of June so we're trying to work out schedules but what we've decided to do is of course divide um divide this uh report into I guess four parts we're going to address uh four topics which will be health um income wealth and poverty education and housing those are based on the data in in in the report these are the most serious issues and of course I think these are the issues that we could make some headway on I do think it's especially important though we get Richland County on board because the data is not disaggregated to the city level it's only Richland Lexington and it's county level estimates so for us to you know put all this effort in and then it really benefits all of Richland County I think we need to have some conversations about getting them on board well I can uh I can facilitate a meeting and uh if we can you know if uh if you all would you know like to participate of course um I'm sure your colleagues would listen to you all a lot quicker than they would listen to me I don't know about that but we'll try you talked about income disparity what about employment disparity uh employment uh is is is a category we are gonna try to address that under income and wealth I've had uh conversations with the chamber uh Carl Blackstone and I've talked about it and I told him we want to uh work very closely with him to get employers in because I think some of the initiatives that I envision coming out of this are going to involve some of the major employers I think we have to get what it has to be to tear down the walls that exist with the business community the business community hasn't been allowed or or has on purpose or has been disenfranchised no matter how you put it they have been segregated from from the city and and they don't have any ownership of anything so it's important that we engage the business community and for whatever reason in Columbia we haven't wanted to do that or we haven't done it yeah I was going to suggest the same thing uh because poverty is such a big variable looking at potential specific constructs that directly local level efforts could address the employment being one potentially um you know um looking at generational wealth could potentially be another one um but looking at poverty as a whole sometimes I feel like it becomes such a a large conversation that we're not able to drill down into something achievable so that would be my suggestion there and then in terms of health you know we've been doing some work around um looking at ways in which we can better engage existing entities so we just joined the Alliance for Health in South Carolina uh so we're really interested in addressing some of those chronic conditions that are facing the city like diabetes and heart disease and things like that and then for education my suggestion there would be um we want to look at so full disclosure I helped um I helped put this survey together so that's why I know the questions all the top of my head but um but when were you going to tell us all that he already knew that so um for education I want us to think beyond graduation rates that's typically something that you know is our our fallback like oh graduation rates are great but there's still kids that fall in the cracks to just get pushed through and don't get the best education that they need or deserve so really thinking about looking at some of the gaps in you know Richland one since most of our schools for the city fall into Richland one and and really focusing on those attainable and achievable statistics that's a unbelievably good point and one of the things that I've always you know high school should have a should be should the high school or the um the school system should be graded on three things you got people come out of there and and graduation rates important however at the end of the day every kid that comes out of high school easy to go on to college go into the military needs job right that's it um and if you can't provide that then you didn't do very good in all those years of education so that's 12 years of education right down the drain if one of those three boxes doesn't get checked sure um and then we got to address those as a community that's correct and start holding people accountable for for the job I'm sorry you're ready I'm just gonna say it's hard to address that if you don't address the families as a whole yeah because the children are being held responsible their outcomes have been held responsible for what they can't control so you gotta you gotta address the families in order to do that I totally agree and I think this is what's ties all this together it's great and it becomes you know without making it overwhelming it ties us all together um as a community as you know to to look at how we affect everybody in this community so I think that's important and and you know sometimes you get your own failing grade that's right um that's something I deal with um so if we get an F on something we're gonna deal with that and you got to deal with this thing holistically you can't piecemeal it exactly it has to be a holistic concern that's geared towards I want to say excellence geared toward something that is going to that's achievable that's going to kind of do you're gonna do this you're gonna do that I think it gives us an approach to excellence and if we don't allow that to happen I think we're gonna find ourselves in a quake Mike well we um to to speak to the education and the employment piece I spent 22 years working at Benedict College and I ran the community development corporation one of the things that we did was we developed programs to empower communities part of it was wealth building home ownership units there and of course out in North Columbia you know to build family wealth but the other thing that we did was a lot of workforce initiatives we met with Prisma last year and we had an initiative that we were pursuing Prisma is of course the largest employer in the area the partnership with Prisma is designed around helping individuals get into health careers um one of the things that we found in our work at the at the college was and of course with the U.S. Department of Labor it's not only education because the program that we operated uh under a youth bill was of course designed around getting uh individuals uh their high school diploma or GEDs but it's also about credential attainment because uh you know what um the data has shown that by 2030 all of these young people are going to need some sort of credential you know truck driving you know you know whatever it is they're going to need a credential in order to be able to get and retain a job they don't you know when you don't have marketable skills you don't have a credential no one's going to let you in the door what we had uh mentioned to them was we would provide the training they would hire those individuals what I like about the system and that's part of what we were going to discuss in the income and wealth portion of this is one of the things that we have to talk about with major employers is of course uh livable wages of course the hospital has committed itself to providing livable wages so the individuals that would come through that I don't care if they're phlebotomists med techs those kinds of things they would be earning at a minimum you know livable wages for this we have as well the city recently the good news is the market the market has improved the concept of livable wage um dramatically in in in columbian everywhere else so so now that doesn't mean it's going to stay that way forever but as of right now that ain't a problem um we're paying more more for everybody um but we'd rather keep somebody than they have to bring somebody new it oh we think those kinds of strategies will come out in the sessions that we're going to have and what we're talking about doing is doing the census sessions over each one of those particular subject areas we're going to get uh solicit input from the community we're bringing stakeholders and uh what I consider to be subject matter experts in those areas uh for example uh for the health care uh uh issue we're asking uh Blue Cross Blue Shield South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services all three major hospitals the uh cooperative uh health program as well as uh the columbian mental health to join us as a part of that we want to talk about what are these gaps you know how can we address those we want to find out what strategies they have to address these and what kind of resources we're going to take from that that same data we're going to put together a um advisory team we're going to sort through all of that data and all of that information so we can develop of course our plan is to develop a report that will synthesize all the information that you all have uh in the uh recent equity report with some um doable I'll say this so so actionable exactly some things that that that we can uh uh get started on and ultimately what we see is in the second phase and I think there should be a second phase we want to build and and that was an idea the mayor's uh and I like it and uh I see a lot of people are doing that as well is to build a dashboard hopefully for the city but certainly one that would uh the mayor just walked by that's how we were oh okay is that let me ask let me ask this question because I know one of our members has a hard stop okay um true and I want to be sensitive to what you the preparation of this is fantastic man what I want to do because I know uh councilman brown he's got a hard stop on he has to leave by two o'clock okay two three now two thirty if we could push this document over to timelines and deliverables I've got it if we could do that that would sort of I don't want him to leave I think it would be good to have that conversation not only the deliverables but also the outcome and of course and project budget okay now I want to do that because we're going to internalize this some more and I'm appreciative of what you've done but I don't want Mr. Brown to leave without having some deliverables yeah on hand the outcome and project budget okay does that make does that oh certainly okay sir and I don't want I don't want to well I I appreciate your time and I want to make the best use of it um where you are thank you well we came up with a uh with a timeline we modified it just uh just slightly um the beauty of where we are now is that you know we've had a lot of time to think about our strategy you know we've had a fair amount of time to make connections as I said you know we had planned a health forum just last week we're back back at the drawing board what we plan on doing is once we are able to secure an agreement we will move very quickly to put the team together we've already had conversations with the University of South Carolina to get some of their team to come over and assist us with compiling some of the data so that we'll be able to uh synthesize that into a report um as you can see it starts with me I know that you all have plans to discuss the budget in May um right after that we would uh immediately next week okay yeah that works for us may second but we would meet we would move uh very quickly to finalize the project design in terms of uh dates um and of course uh refine the deliverables that we spoke about what we plan on doing as well is to have those sessions between June and September I've already had conversations with individuals throughout the community so we're ready to go we're working with um the um original library because you know we wanted to have forums that people could access we wanted to have facilities where people you know felt safe we would like to possibly look at maybe even uh some of the city facilities that would allow us to be able to go in and have those forums um and we want to go ahead and uh get that data we want folks to start talking about this we want to introduce uh some of the findings from the report we want to be uh as you know as as generous as we can with uh you promise me you go as part of this June through September uh huh you're gonna engage the business community oh uh I promise I was actually going to have that workshop uh at the end of May but we're gonna push it back and go ahead with it you promise you'll invite me to it I would love to have you matter of fact we're asking uh uh if uh council members would come and be a part of the panel I know uh Reverend uh McDowell has agreed to come to the health uh health uh forum I think I can add value I'll come I I know you would I know you would I mean because you know folks want to use it use it yes I don't think I can provide value I won't be there we want you there and of course we're gonna have uh Carl uh he's coming and uh he's gonna invite a cross section of business leaders and uh you know uh we're gonna as I said we're gonna ask our friends from our prison to come over um to sit on and talk about some of the things that they've done and it probably would be a good idea if maybe someone from uh the city manager's office um uh would come over and talk about what the city's done in terms of promoting livable wage I mean the the things that you all have done in terms of uh uh hiring and employment I mean uh those are models for private business as well as other municipalities you know I mean removing some of the barriers to individuals that have been recent in return to these communities when they can come and get these jobs livable wage jobs they're not going back uh going back to prison so we want to be able to share the share that uh information um once we finish the uh the sessions um in October November we're gonna sit down with the team of course our research team and start pulling together all of the input um and we will start working on of course the report which is going to be pretty comprehensive and it will of course culminate with uh the findings and the recommendations that are going to be in plain language hopefully we'll be able to try to identify resources that would go with that and that's part of the conversations that we're going to have with uh our advisory team because you know we know the city the county can't afford for those things but if we can talk to entities like uh some of the foundations and say look this you know you're part of this community you know um of course you know uh there's uh the uh dominion foundation um um colonial life has uh has a foundation as well there are a number of organizations that contribute to this process to bring resources to try to address some of these disparities once we finish that we will be coming to council with a completed report we want to give you all the chance to review it beat it up um hey larry we didn't like that you know we need you to go back and uh look at some of the uh some of the data and uh come back to us with something uh a little different we want to keep it flexible and then we would uh finalize the report and submit it to you all by december by that time our plan would be of course to um submit uh uh either a request or at least a plan to do a phase two um mayor rickham mentioned he said he saw this as a multi-year project maybe you know two to three years in phase um two that would be based on the deliverable correct the success of those things correct correct okay you know because of course the the the recommendations the strategies there'll be things that you know uh local government can adopt we can do this we can partner with this entity to make this happen um we of course in the next phase we would set up uh of course a um like i said a dashboard that would allow us to track those outcomes because we want to be able to measure when people come to the city when they come to the county we want to be able to go and say look you know these are the measures we want to have it prominently displayed and when we have successes we want to tout those as well ultimately what we see is you know the outcomes of course would be to increase participation community dialogue the hallmark of columbia has been that people can talk i mean i i tell folks all the time no matter where i go i said you know i don't care who you are i said you know you you know uh or what the background is we can talk we can always communicate you know people are very civil in columbia and we want to be able to promote that we want of course uh work with the city to make it you know safe uh and convenient for individuals that are coming lin uh in the past i think in 2015 you all did a race and equity not a it wasn't a race and equity but it was a discussion on race we did a four-part series on race and equity race and education race and economics and i can't recall the other one but it was a four-part series yeah there there are actually some um pictures in in the uh in the presentation from that event i mean the room was full and it was very diverse you know i don't i don't think anybody got heard uh i see uh reverend mcdowell here he was he was there and so it was a councilman uh uh duvall so apparently it went very well but uh of course uh it just means there's more to do um and like i said you know the final outcome would be the action plan and that would tell us what we need to do the recommendations are good but they had they really didn't have a lot of teeth in them to say well hey this is what we need to do this is what it's going to cost and these are the partners that we need to be able to uh make that happen you know columbia is the capital city you know columbia has been a leader in this area and throughout the state and we want that to continue to be the case we want to be able to attract and retain individuals we want people to feel comfortable living here i want to continue living here i want to live past 68 years uh you know i'll take i'll take 90 if i can get them for certain but uh you know i think the uh crc is the correct form the correct vehicle and of course the uh the correct partner to be able to make this happen but i will entertain any questions i know uh councilman ground uh that you have to go in just a few minutes i gotta i gotta think about babies from school i think i'm in favor and if we as long as we're very clear about the definitions of the four topic areas that you are going to study through these focus groups to make sure that they directly pertain to local government in particular the city of columbia and then i'm also happy to participate however you see makes sense i think all of us are pretty invested so we're consensual as dr bussel's just just said we have consensually agreed on this thing and for some reason i thought the consensual agreement was like a council no formal one not formal yes but look i think we can agree on this and we can move forward it was it was critical that we understood what the deliverables or and what they could possibly do and impact our city and that's why i wanted to move a little quickly into this because that takes there's some more things we need to talk about not in terms of uh creating more but a clear defined definition of how they how they how they are dragged into function okay yes ma'am i just want to say one thing that in along the lines of what autotube is saying about clear definitions um it would be helpful once you all kind of digest the report um we don't want our of course we don't know what the actual outcomes would be because we've got to wait for the input but your expectations along those lines of the clear definitions in line with what the city ordinance is or requirements all would be very helpful yeah so we'll make sure we're not bearing off in a different direction we want to make sure we're clear that's the way you guys want us to head yeah i'm happy to i'll circle back with you and then we'll share something that's great yeah and i also think what's really important is you know when we talk about community you know oftentimes we think about i think we think about it in a limited focus and when i think about community i think about all of us working together to help everybody um so so i think as we go through this we that's a really good messaging word and i think we need to be able to define for people as we go through this what that what community really means um and in too many times it means something different to somebody else and it's about all of us being winners not picking winners and losers right you have to put an s on it so many of us right i think we're talking about you know it's a powerful word in today's world and i think we got to use it correctly well that's that's very true and i think uh what i saw in uh at least the data from throughout the country you know a lot of times folks feel that if um if you're promoting race and equity then that means someone loses um all of the data that i saw there was never an instance where one group one over the other a a win for one group saying hey you know we're able to get jobs we're able to take care of our families benefits not only uh communities of color but of course white communities as well inclusion is undefeated that's correct that's correct that's correct i like that so if we could if we could let's move into our project budget so there has been some conversation about about that budget and of course let's talk to us a few minutes now we're going to dive into this more deeply when uh each member kind of internalize this document i think there has been some conversation with city manager and the the deliverables of course was of course something that you and i talked about and how important that was when we started looking at a project budget ma'am yeah i i don't see anything in the slide deck that's different from the final version of the contract agreement and the scope that you sent over larry so i'm just looking for i guess the committee to fully embrace it revert this out of the committee because we do have it on your draft agenda for tuesday i know there was some discussion just now about maybe defining something for a little bit further but i'm taking it we get it on yes oh yeah about implementation yeah just make sure we've fallen what you all expect in terms of the work the scope of the outcome right so you should have a copy of the actual contract and the the scope and the deliverables that are a little bit i think that is fleshed out as to this final point and if you all agree with that just to share this is what we would be putting on your agenda to say that the actual contract with the stove well i'm i'm in agreement with it okay i'm agree yeah i think that's okay thank you yes for the committee is in agreement and uh of course we're gonna move forward with this we know that there's some other clarifying conversations we need to have but this does not include what we need to do on on tuesday yeah i meant afterwards i wasn't trying to delay it been here for a while so no we don't want to delay it okay larry anything else uh well i know you got a lot to say and we appreciate you saying what you say it but it certainly gives us the impetus to look at this document internalize it some more because of course it was the deliverables that you and i talked about that's right and that it was more important to make sure that we got those things in writing that's right and now to act on those things comprehensively we don't need to delay anything let's go ahead and start the process on to on tuesday and we'll continue this conversation at another time well i i guess uh should uh should should i ask uh my board uh members to come and uh be a part of the meeting i mean on tuesday yeah um i don't think it's i mean personally it was real soon happy with that i don't personally think is this going to be on the con is this something that's in the same calendar it is no man i've never felt it it's always nice to see the support so if you'd like to have some folks there i think it's not a bad idea and they could leave after that i can certainly ask me you all appointed several of you don't mean you don't need to say the same as far as if if she wants to let me just say it that way but it's on the consent calendar well i know she's ready to say something today oh no you've covered it all i'll bring me uh i appreciate mitch's support but uh if it's on the consent calendar if there's something you just need to say say it but uh it's on the consent calendar it'll it'll it'll just say one percent you wouldn't even have a opportunity to say it unless you want it to at the beginning of the meeting yeah i just want to say thank you well i'll say thank you and thank you thank you any other questions no uh we we just certainly want to thank you as an organization we appreciate the opportunity to work with uh with uh with the city i mean uh you know we've had a long history with the city but um you know we want to come and try to make columbia columbia a great place to live and thank you sir thank you opportunity thank you guys for your time thank you all thank you all it definitely nice to meet you i'm pan-vinge i'm sorry yeah don't leave your bag


Okay, tell me I'm not alone in this. Early 90s, young teen, forging and destroying friendships over the intense button mashing and frantically trying to memorize and execute the exact sequence to pull off that sweet, sweet fatality. Yep, that's it. I'm talking about Mortal Kombat, the hottest and one of the most controversial games of its time. Now, Street Fighter established the foundation for fighting games, but Mortal Kombat came in and turned that model on its head. I mean, what martial artists didn't spend hours listening to the radio on your tape deck waiting to hear that kick-ass electronic Mortal Kombat theme song to come on so you could just jam that record button? Honestly, probably a lot of you. I had too much free time. But in all seriousness, back then, Mortal Kombat was a big deal, and it has blossomed with quite the solid franchise with 11 main entries in the series and a handful of spinoffs. And when it was announced that a live action movie was going to be made, I was beside myself with excitement, and I couldn't wait to see how it translated to the big screen. And now it's also just been announced that we can look forward to a brand new movie that just went into production coming out in 2021. Now, while it really hasn't quite aged well in the past 24 years, it's been that long. It still holds a rather unique place in motion picture history, and it will always hold a special sense of nostalgia for me. This film landed in a couple of different transitional phases. First, it came out during the early experimentation of video game movies. With the massive failure of the Mario Brothers movie and Street Fighter film, Hollywood was not the friendliest venue for video game adaptations at this time. So what was different this time around? In my personal opinion, both the Mario and Street Fighter films felt like they lacked the confidence to be true to the source material and almost felt apologetic. Mortal Kombat, on the other hand, knew what it was, and it doubled down on that commitment and it ended up being the first major video game movie that was successful, so it broke that barrier. Second, the early 90s was the transition into CG becoming mainstream in films. It was still fairly new and Mortal Kombat found this sweet spot of keeping one foot in the old school style of special effects and another in the new world of CGI. Now while the effects don't quite hold up to today's standards, it had enough of a wild factor for us at the time to keep us engaged. So today in honor of one of my favorite guilty pleasures of martial arts films, we're going to look at 10 fun facts about Mortal Kombat. Okay, so there's actually a reason I chose to do the Karate Kid as our first in a dojo video and Mortal Kombat as our second. Both films have something in common. They were both choreographed by Tongue Siddle Master and one of Hollywood's most notable choreographers at the time, Master Pat E. Johnson. And in fact, I have three films that I've always considered the Pat Johnson trilogy. They are the Karate Kid, Mortal Kombat, and 1990s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. These films stand out due to mainly because they show just how versatile Pat Johnson can be. Look at the dynamics of the films. The Karate Kid, he had to work with actors, most of which had zero prior martial arts experience, and he had to portray them in a realistic and relatable way. That's not an easy take. But with Mortal Kombat, he had to deal with a diverse cast, most of which did have martial arts experience and from a wide array of different arts and portray them in a magical fantasy setting and still have it be exciting. With Ninja Turtles, he had to direct stunt actors and martial artists in heavy-layed tech suits with mechanical heads and direct them to do their stunts blindly. With that film portraying the turtles in the more downward fashion, he had to balance realism with science fiction. So why do I think that Pat Johnson was able to do such a great job with these films? Mainly because he understands the story that the fighting portrays, and he also invites a lot of input from the experienced cast and masterfully blends everything together. Mortal Kombat is very much in this vein. The choreography in this film is amazing and this movie features ninjas, kung fu, karate, taekwondo, tactical combat, and magical beasts and creatures. Now Mr. Johnson lists the advice of Robin Shu, who plays Liu Kang, and also François Petit, who plays Sub-Zero. Both have a lot of extensive experience and working with Mr. Johnson, they were able to add a lot of flavor to the film's fighting styles. And in a little additional fun note, the director of the film, Paul W. Anderson, was in a little bit over his head as this was the biggest film he had worked on to this day and it was his first action film. When they started production, he often played it safe by filming all the fight scenes in the white shots, but he found that after several repetitions, the actors were getting really tired and really fast. Robin Shu gave him the advice that in the martial arts film, white shots are used only for a few seconds to establish a scene in action, and then cut in closer for the more intimate action. This then helped him streamline the film and the scenes much more efficiently. Now speaking of Robin Shu and François Petit, they were just a couple of cast members that had extensive martial arts experience. François Petit was actually the highest ranking martial artist on staff. Supposedly currently having the ranks of Kaiden Shihan in Ninjutsu, an A3 Black Belt in Jujutsu, a 7th degree Black Belt in Karate, and a 3rd degree Black Belt in Judo. He was very heavily involved with the film and they needed someone to play Sub-Zero, so he got the part, but his screen time was limited due to the amount of work he did behind the cameras. Now Robin Shu, who played Liu Kang, worked as an action star and stuntman with experience in Karate, Kempo, and Wushu. Scorpion was played by Chris Casamasa, president of the Red Dragon Karate Schools, and held the number one title forms competitor for four consecutive years. Reptile was played by Keith Cook, grand champion of five titles at the U.S. World and U.S. Open Karate tournaments, with experience in Karate, Wushu, and Taekwondo. He also played the role of Younger Sub-Zero in the sequel, Mortal Kombat and Iolation. Carrie Hiryuki Tagawa had experience in Kendo, traditional Karate, and was part of the Japanese Karate Association. He also spent his free time developing his own art of Chun Shin, in which he focuses less on the violent nature and more on the energy and fulfillment side of the arts. Lyndon Ashby, who portrayed Johnny Cage, had previous experience in Taekwondo, Kung Fu, and Karate. Trevor Goddard, who played Kano, was an avid boxer in England and held an impressive 58-1-1 record as a light heavyweight, and he came to America the Box with a professional record of 2-1-1. Gerald Okamura studied the arts of Kendo, Taekwondo, Aikido, and had a fifth degree black belt in San Shu, Kung Fu. And there's Kenneth Edwards, who played Art Lean. He had a background in multiple Chinese arts, including Northern Prane Mantis, Zhao Ga, and is the founder of the Shan Tong, Kung Fu Association of America, which eerily comes close to Shang Tsung. Now, superstition often plays a part in Hollywood, and people like to attribute curses for any ill fate met by cast members, such as the poltergeist and Superman curses, just to name a couple. Now, I don't personally buy into this. However, Mortal Kombat had some unfortunate untimely deaths, which eerily seemed to be tied to certain characters. The character of Jax was supposed to be played by Steve James, notable 80s action star, but unfortunately he passed away before production began. The role was then picked up by Gregory McKinney, who sadly passed away a couple of years after the film. Both actors were 41. Similarly, Kano seemed to carry the same fate, with Trevor Goddard passing away at age 40, and actor Darren Chalavi, who played Kano in the web series Mortal Kombat Legacy. He was 42. So that's four Mortal Kombat actors that passed away at the young ages of 40, 41, and 42. It's a little eerie if you believe in that sort of thing. Now, on the flip side of this, we have the amazing Carrie Huyuki Tegawa, who did a fantastic performance of Shang Tsung, capturing both the charm and deception of the evil sorcerer. Mr. Tegawa has a distinction of playing Shang Tsung in three different incarnations of the character. First in the 1995 film, then again he played the sorcerer in the second season of Mortal Kombat Legacy, the web series in 2013, and then once again as the voice of Shang Tsung in the recent Mortal Kombat 11 video game. I guess he's just not ready to finish him. Now, as mentioned before, this movie was developed on the threshold of CGI taking hold in the movie industry. Mortal Kombat's budget was nowhere near the likes of effects pinnacles, such as Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park, but they still utilized the technology to ump the amperage of the film. In the battle between Johnny Cage and Scorpion, the effects supervisors were originally gonna have Scorpion's spirit be a real tangible prop to be used on wires and filmed in camera. However, during brainstorming and the leap of faith, they decided to give CGI a try. Now, while it's pretty low end by today's standards, it did open up a major freedom in the scene, and it did add an element of tension. In 1995, this was super cool to see on screen. By the time Mortal Kombat the movie went into production, the video game series was already firmly established with the first game and even better second game as a part of everyone's own collection. The film primarily focuses on the story of the first game, but it does include a few overlapping features from Mortal Kombat 2, including the inclusion of Jax, Kitana, Outworld, and the Emperor of Shao Kahn. Now, while this film was in production, so was the new Mortal Kombat 3 arcade game, and they were in fact marketed together in dual campaigns. Now, one of the new features of Mortal Kombat 3 was the inclusion of combat codes or a series of icons that players could enter and unlock characters and special features of the game. These codes were found everywhere in game manuals, magazines, advertisements, and even in the movie. Although not always easy to decipher, the Mortal Kombat 3 combat codes can be found peppered throughout the film. Each Mortal Kombat character is known for their own signature moves in the game. Many of them are basic, but some are just outright outlandish. The movie I felt did a pretty good job including at least one special move for each video game character. Raiden, Harness, Lightning, and Teleportation. Sony Blade did her leg grab takedown. Johnny Cage got both his shadow kick and his split speed deck move. Sub-Zero Ice Disopponents. Scorpion used both his spear and its teleportation. Shang Tsung used his shape-shifting. Goro, his grab-and-pound move. Reptile has acid attack and spit, and they somehow even worked in Liu Kang's bicycle kick and fireball. Now, there were even some nods to the game's finishing moves, including Scorpion's fire breath and Johnny Cage's friendship move from Mortal Kombat 2. However, there seems to be two characters that did not get to utilize their signature moves from the game. Kitana and Kano. Their fights were among the smaller moments of the film, but they didn't really break out any video game moves, although Kitana did in the second movie. Hmm, and both of the names start with K. Coincidence? Probably. The two major non-human characters in this film could not have been made any more different from each other. We have the Outworld Mortal Kombat Champion of Goro and the slimy, stealthy Reptile. Now, Reptile was less impressive in design. He was a later addition to the film, and his animation and texturing did not age well at all. But to be fair, he was a little cringe-worthy even then. CGI was still really expensive and experimental, but I do give him credit for including an all-CG character, which really still wasn't all that common at the time. Goro, on the other hand, was much more impressive looking. He was constructed out of a mechanical rig strapped to an actor. The actor walked and controlled the lower arms, which the rig controlled the mechanical upper arms via motion control. Goro's head was also remotely controlled, and the blended effect created what I felt was a pretty cool and menacing character at the time. Now, it was a little well known that the Goro animatronic experienced a lot of issues, and it broke down a lot. But the mark of a good film is being able to push through broken technology. I'm looking at you, Bruce. There's this current stigma regarding films and reshoots. Lately, when people hear of a film going into reshoots, the assumption seems to be that something's horribly wrong, something's wrong with the film. But the truth is, reshoots were always were a very common practice in motion pictures. Many times what works on paper doesn't always translate to a finished edit. The reshoots are the way that you nip and tuck your film to be as good as it can be. Now, I think I can fairly say that most fans of the movie are pretty much in agreement on the two best fights in the film. The first, between the battle of Johnny Cage and Scorpion, and the second, Luke Hanger Reptile. And both of these sequences were the results of reshoots. When they played the original cut of the film to test audiences, the result was lukewarm, with many people feeling that the movies didn't really contain enough action scenes. As a result, they set Robin Shoe out to direct the second unit and film additional scenes. The first was actually an expansion of Johnny Cage and Scorpion. In the original cut of the film, the fight ended with Johnny Cage shadow kicking the specter in the Battle in the Woods. In the reshoots, they decided to extend the sequence through a portal and have them undergo an epic underworld rumble. The scene was fierce, visually appealing, and totally engaging. It was a fun sequence and it actually felt like it was ripped right out of the Mortal Kombat game. Now, the human reptile fight was never originally intended to be in the film at all, and it was added last minute. And ironically, it's probably the most high octane fight of the film. And it's in these scenes that you can see the directional differences between Pat Johnson and Robin Shoe. Pat Johnson's fight scenes featured more character development, dialogue, and that moved the story along.  You can get a sense of some of the Kung Fu production with frantically fierce and well-coordinated counters, fast cutting, and inclusion of wire work. In fact, these are the only two fights in the movie that use wire work at all. And this is one of the first mainstream American films to feature wire work as well. Now, in a film that features extensive martial arts, injuries are unfortunately a possibility. Now, while most of the cast of this film were experienced martial artists and many did their own stunts, a few actors did experience some accidents. During one of Sony Blade's fight scenes, actress Bridget Wilson suffered a dislocated shoulder. Luckily, it wasn't too severe and set medics were able to reset it easily and she was able to continue filming. Lyndon Ashby had expressed an interest in stunt doubles for many scenes, but Robin Shoe talked him out of it, saying it was best to do as many of your own stunts as possible. He did very well, but during his fight with Scorpion, one of Scorpion's kicks happened to land between protective padding and he accidentally bruised one of Ashby's kidneys. He was ultimately fine, but he apparently urinated blood for a bit. Robin Shoe convinced him to go without a stunt double and then he was injured in a scene directed by Robin Shoe. Coincidence? Yeah, probably. But that's okay, Robin Shoe didn't get away scot-free either. During his battle with Reptile, he was flung by the Green Ninja and he struck a pillar on the set, actually breaking two of his ribs. He didn't tell anyone because he was afraid that they would halt production. So in the end, they were the winners of the box office, but it wasn't the flawless victory. Yeah, I went there, deal with it. Now, as a quit bonus fun fact, the Mortal Kombat film is also known for its killer soundtrack. Now, this was another risky move by the filmmakers. The studio and record company wanted to fill the movie with pop music, but the filmmakers really wanted to try an electronic dance music score. The producers really had to fight for it, but they eventually got their way and it paid off. Mortal Kombat was one of the first films to have an EMD soundtrack go platinum and it did it in less than two weeks. And one more bonus fun fact, Trevor Goddard was so good at playing Kano that he actually permanently changed the character for the origin story canon. In the original storyline, Kano was of Japanese American descent, but Goddard came in as an Australian and he nailed his addition so well that Mortal Kombat creators John Tobias and Ed Boone were totally impressed and they decided to change the character background to Australian and it remained that way in all future games. Even funnier about this was that Trevor Goddard lied. He wasn't even Australian. He claimed to be Australian, but he was born in England, but he did so well with the accent, and they all believed that to be his nationality. I mean, it is fitting, Kano was not a man to be trusted. So I really hope that you enjoyed this episode. I had a lot of fun researching this one. And as I mentioned at the beginning, that I've considered this the second of my own Pat Johnson trilogy with the third one being Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. So as you've probably guessed, that will be our next Nintendo feature. In the meantime, I've listed a bunch of Mortal Kombat goodness down in the description below, so go enjoy. Thank you so much for watching. Please like, subscribe, join us on Patreon for exclusive content. And as always, I would love to hear your contributions in the comment section. If you're new to the channel, we have a ton of content and we're always expanding every day. So get over here. Yeah, this is why I get down those.