August 27, 2025 • 21 mins
In this episode of Government Speak, we’re digging into the hidden history written into the deeds of homes across Contra Costa County. The Clerk-Recorder’s Office discuss the Mapping Prejudice Project—a powerful nationwide initiative uncovering racially restrictive housing covenants that once shaped who could live where in our communities.
What does it mean to map these covenants today? How does this work help us better understand modern-day housing inequities? And where do we go from here?
Guests: Clerk-Recorder and Registrar of Voters Kristin Connelly and Host Kristi Jourdan
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to government Speak.
This is where we'll cut throughthe government speak to get the
information you need aboutcounty programs, services, and
events straight from the source.
Welcome to Government Speak,
Contra Costa County'sofficial podcast.
In this episode we're digginginto the hidden history written
to the deeds of homesacross Contra Costa County.
(00:20):
The Mapping Prejudice Projectis a powerful initiative
uncovering racially restrictivehousing covenants that once
shaped who could livewhere in our communities.
What does it mean to mapthese covenants today?
How does this work help usbetter understand modern day
housing inequities andwhere do we go from here?
To help us better understand,we're joined by registrar of
voters and clerkrecorder Kristen Conley.
(00:41):
Kristen, welcome to the podcast.
Thanks for having me.
So explain to us what is themapping Prejudice Project.
Well, the first thing you haveto understand is that we are
engaging in this work becauseof a 2021, AB 1466, that was
passed by theCalifornia legislature.
That required counties to comeup with a plan for identifying
(01:03):
and redacting illegalrestrictive covenants in the
public record.
Importantly, so it was anunfunded mandate, and there was
lots of flexibility about howyou would do this, but when I
came into office in 2023, ourstaff had been wrestling with
how to how to go about this andWe have been dealing with this
as homeowners have requested it.
(01:24):
And so, but what we were ableto do is partner with the
University of Minnesota'smapping Prejudice Project, or
make sure they getcredit for the name.
They're the mappingPrejudice Project.
It's part of theirlibrary system.
And so it's through a uniquepartnership with them that
we're going to be able tomeet this state mandate.
By not spending very muchmoney, but to engage the
(01:48):
community in helpingus get there.
So it's a partnership betweenour office, the University of
Minnesota Library Systemsmapping Prejudice Project, and
community volunteers.
So I even want to backup to what is a covenant?
Oh, OK.
Well, so there's lots ofdifferent, so in housing
records, right?
(02:08):
So I'm the county recorder,our office is responsible for
recording all manner ofproperty transactions, right?
And so Sometimes those are
deeds, sometimesthose are trusts.
They look all different ways.
And there's all these, there'salso things called CC&Rs, which
are basically the rulesfor a housing development.
And so for many years, andprimarily this word during the
years of 19 starting in the1920s through the 1960s, these
(02:31):
documents had limitations aboutwho could live in a place.
And so what it, so a covenant,right, is sort of a rule that
flows with a property.
And so that's whatwe're talking about.
OK. So why why is itimportant to address this now?
Give us some context.
(02:52):
Yeah. OK.
So here's the thing, is thatthere was a landmark case of
the Supreme Court in 1948 thatbasically struck down these
illegal racial restrictivecovenants on the grounds that
they violated the EqualProtection Clause.
However, the Um, they stillcontinued to be in existence,
and it wasn't until the FairHousing Act was passed in 1968
(03:12):
that it was really clear thatabsolutely these no longer were
in effect and could no longerbe considered valid parts of
something that was in effect.
So let's be clear, this hasn'tbeen in effect since 1968.
However, this language is, ifsomeone's going to buy a house
in the year 2025, and theyhappen to be buying a property
(03:35):
that had one of thesedocuments, that had some of
this language in their
document, It canbe very upsetting.
And so the current process isthat, you know, in this, I just
saw one of these examplesearlier this week of a
homeowner coming to usrequesting that this language
be redacted from theirproperty documents.
And so because they wouldn'thave been able to live in their
(03:57):
house, and that's upsetting.
So, so it's not in effectanymore, but what we're able to
do is meet The intention ofthis this law in California to
get rid of the stuff in thepublic record, and we're able
to do it in a way that's
actually going to produce a map.
So in addition to meeting themandate, we're going to be able
to visually see where these umoutdated, illegal, they're not
(04:21):
I just want to emphasize that,but see the history of where
in effect anymore.
this took place and see whetheror not it correlates to Um, any
kind of current housingsegregation that we might see
across our communities, andpeople are surprised as I go
out and talk about it and Ishow them examples of some of
this language.
People are pretty surprised.
(04:43):
We had an opportunity to to seean example of that during the
general plan video project thatwe work on our office, um, saw
it at a house in Pleasant Hill,and it was only white people
will live here and if someonewho is not white lives here,
uh, you're going to pay$25,000 to each neighbor.
Uh, for, yeah, wow, yeah.
Um, so when you, when you talkabout kind of visually laying
(05:05):
this out, what kind of sources
or tools are partof the project?
What's your team using?
Yeah, so the University ofMinnesota uses this platform
called the Zuniverseto host the documents.
And so starting in 2016,and the reason it it sort of
sprouted up at the university.
Minnesota is becauseMinneapolis is actually a city
(05:25):
with terrible history ofdisparities in homeownership.
So 78% of homeowners or excuseme, 78% of white residents of
Minneapolis are homeowners,whereas only 25% of black
residents of Minneapolisare homeowners.
And so that's that was theinspiration for University of
(05:45):
Minnesota starting this process.
And so they were able toPartner with this platform
called Zuniverse, so theycould have community volunteers
basically crowdsource toidentify where these different
covenants exist and workingwith, you know, major cities
like Milwaukee and different,different Midwest towns to
identify these um.
(06:07):
Where these documentsexist in the public record.
Now, the history of Californiais a little different, and the
University of Minnesota isexcited to partner with us.
We're their first WestCoast jurisdiction.
And so, um, and we're big,you know, so far, they have
identified 50,000.
Uh, racial covenants in in allthe different documents that
(06:29):
they've looked at total.
And just with our projectinitially, we think that just
our project in Contra Costa,after scanning and searching 9
million images from 1850 to1984, um, we've identified
likely 38,000 documents that
will need to bereviewed and redacted.
(06:52):
So we will be A massiveincrease to the number of Um,
covenants that are identifiedwhen we're all said and done.
I know it's pretty early on and
you're in the data is coming in.
Um, has anythingsurprised you yet?
Not really.
(07:12):
I mean, and again, itis super early days.
So we have more than 170 peoplethat have volunteered to help
us out with this project,for which we're grateful.
Um, we need 5 people to reviewevery potential covenant, and
so with 38,000 covenants, we
need a lot of folksto help us out.
But even just in the 1st 1700tranche of, you know, covenants
identified, we've already foundthose across just about every
(07:36):
corner of the county.
And so, right, I mean that'sAntioch and El Cerrito and
Richmond and Martinez andLafayette and Pleasant Hill.
And so, you know, there's a um
You know, we'llsee where it goes.
But, and I've, I've, I'vehad a very warm reception.
(07:57):
I've been trying to speakto every service club in the
county since January and soit's been great to talk to
Rotary Clubs and Oakley and
Elsa Bronte andeverywhere in between.
And, um, I've also beenspeaking to realtor groups, and
I was just in Danville thismorning and there's a lot of
interest in doing this.
(08:17):
I had a ton.
I'm originally from Martinezand I talked to Martinez Rotary
last night.
And had a ton of peoplesign up to to help us out.
And so, um, so I would say I'mI'm not not surprised that the
community is embracing us and,and, um, you know, and I, and I
get some skeptical questionstoo, where people are like, why
are you doing this?
(08:38):
And so, and I'm alwaysinterested in having that kind
of dialogue.
Um, and so what we're trying todo is, as the county recorder,
I think this project will helpus understand the history of
housing discrimination.
And by speaking to groups likethe Mayor's conference, which I
did a couple months ago.
I let them know that we'llshare this on an open source
way, you know, these maps thatare being developed, um, for
(08:58):
them to do with what they wantin their communities in terms
of having communityconversations about what we
what we learn in this process.
So you kind of touched onsomething I was going to ask
about next, um, volunteers,how can people get involved?
Sure. So you can email us atvolunteers@cr.cccounty.us.
(09:18):
Um, and so, and that'sactually listed.
You can go to our website,which is Contra Costavote.gov,
and we have a, if you go underthe recorder um section of our
website, there's a mappingprejudice button that you can
select, and there's details
about how to signup and get involved.
And here's the thing, there'sno age requirement, there's no
minimum or maximum.
(09:40):
There's no minimumhour requirement.
You can do this from thecomfort of your home at
whatever hour of the dayyou have some free time.
And so, um, because I wastalking to a gentleman at
Martinez Rotary last nightwho put a question mark in the
column about whether or not hewas going to volunteer because
he didn't, you don't want tocommit if he couldn't meet our
minimum hours.
And I assured him that, sir, ifyou give us 1 hour, we will say
thank you very much.
(10:03):
Um, if you give us 100, that'dbe that'd be great, but we
really will takeeverything in between.
What we're also asking is ifthere are community groups that
we can speak to or um, youknow, different volunteer
organizations that areinterested in You know, getting
folks excited about partnering,then, you know, I definitely
I'm happy to go speak to themdirectly myself, um, send our
(10:25):
records archivemanager, Joseph Barton.
He's at the, he's heading thisup for us and it's just such a,
he's so committed to understandthe history of Contra Costa.
He's such a great guy, 5thgeneration Martinez, um,
resident born and raised, um,you know, he lives in lives in
Brentwood now, but he just
loves Martinez andjust like I do.
(10:46):
And um, so yeah, no, there'slots of different ways you can
help out.
Um,
So kind of switching gears alittle bit, how do you in your
role see this this project umincreasing or influencing the
public's understanding of ourregion's history of segregation
and inequality?
(11:07):
I mean, I meet people wheneverI talk about this who are
surprised, particularly youngpeople, that this ever existed
in California, that thesekinds of restrictions were
allowed under the law.
The extent to which theywere, the impacts on the
Asian-American communityin particular, right?
That's discrimination looksdifferent in California than it
does in some of these otherplaces that that University of
(11:28):
Minnesota is working with.
Um, and so I, um, Yeah, Ithink, I think that there, it's
sort of this, you know,1968 wasn't that long ago.
And so, you know, people,people I think are surprised
that, you know, this is notsomeone else's problem, someone
(11:49):
else's communitydealt with this.
And um and I just think it'sYou know, and we're not, we're
gonna, we're going to put theredacted documents, right,
where this language is redacted.
Those will be the documents
that get circulatedmoving forward.
We'll keep the originals.
I mean, that's part of history.
And so those willstay in our archives.
(12:10):
But when you go to buy ahouse and are doing a new
transaction, the redacteddocuments will be going forward
and hopefully that will make ita uh not a painful process for
some people because we'vedefinitely gotten the feedback
that for the people thathave been asking us.
To do this on a, on a, youknow, one-off basis when
they're buying a house, it'suncomfortable and I would love
for that to beprevented in the future.
(12:33):
Um, but yeah, the history,the history is the history.
And so, um, and you know, Ithink it'll be interesting to
see what it looked like in the20s to the 60s in different
parts of our communityin particular, right?
That's really where these,these are most likely to have
been put in place and then seewhat that looks like compared
to, you know, how, what are,what are our patterns today.
(12:53):
So, um Yes, we'll see.
I think, and I think theconversations will look
different in different places.
So, and that's OK.
Once everything's mappedout, um, what comes next?
What, what should, you know,when I think about decision
makers in the county, whatshould policymakers, planners,
advocates, what shouldthey be thinking about?
(13:16):
Yeah, I mean I think I thinkthat people need to ask them
like what what doeswhat surprises them?
What are they learning, right?
So in in a county ofalmost 1.2 million people.
I don't know the total housingstock currently, right?
But to have 38,000 or so, youknow, hits that are going to be
mapped out in some pattern.
You know, I think that weshould ask ourselves important
(13:37):
questions about if we've really
overcome theseprevious barriers.
And so, you know, there areplenty of people that work
specifically on housing.
I think city council membersneed to have conversations
about how much housing they'reapproving or opposing in their
particular communities and andhow that connects to what, what
particular, youknow, history is.
(13:59):
But I'm proud that we'regoing to be able to meet this
unfunded mandate.
Without having a six-figurecontract go or 7 figure really
in most places, a 7 figurecontract going to a private
sector company that's justgonna do the redactions.
I think that the approach we'retaking is going to be stretched
public, you know, really hardpublic dollars the furthest,
(14:22):
and then we're gonna, and we'redoing it in conversation with
the community.
And so, you know, I think it'llbe, you know, I think I know
that all the members of theboard of supervisors are going
to be interested in this andI'm happy to talk to, you know,
kind of share it with people.
And what's great is thatthe, um, our partners at the
University of Minnesota mappingPrejudice project, they're
(14:44):
going to be buildingthe map along the way.
So we're going to start to seethings even before we get too
deep into the, intodoing all of the work.
And and it's, and we'redoing it in a random sample.
So it's like I don't, you know,you may come across a volunteer
may come across something inhis or her own community, but
one reason I'm going to everycorner of Contra Costa to
(15:06):
recruit volunteers is that Iwant this to be something that
where we don't just havevolunteered for one particular
part of the county.
Looking at the whole county.
I want, I want there tobe buying from everybody.
So we're going to have mapsalong the way, which I think
will be, um, there'll be somegratification for volunteers
who are helping us build this,um, and so, yeah, I think, I
(15:28):
think, I think there'sgoing to be some learning.
I think people likelearning their history.
Even when it's hard.
Um, we kind of touched on thisa little bit, but you know, um,
How could this inform currenthousing policy, land use
policy, um, racialequity efforts?
Yeah, I mean, let me be clear,as the county clerk recorder
(15:50):
and registrar voters,everything I do, I do on a
nonpartisan basis and andthere's no question that land
use and housing are reallybig issues at the local level.
They can often
Kick off a lot of feelings, um,and there's lots of different
opinions aboutthat kind of stuff.
(16:10):
But I do think that there's areal hunger, particularly among
young people, to figure outhow can we make our communities
more affordable, you know, andI know lots of people in my age
demographic as we're watchingour kids age is how, how, how
is California going to continueto be this land of opportunity
when we've we haven't solved
(16:31):
the affordability crisis at all.
And You know, I've lived backhere as a full-fledged adult
for 15 years now, and I lamentthat there's a lot of lot of
work that stillneeds to be done.
We haven't tackled alot of our challenges.
And so I want to stay in mylane because I'm a nonpartisan
clerk recorder and registrar,but I think that I hopefully
(16:51):
can be facilitating importantconversations in lots of other
places by Um, doing this workand producing these maps for
our different communities.
I'm sure there'll bediscussions around
reconciliation, communityhealing, potential reparation.
There's there's a lot.
(17:12):
A lot comes to mind.
Um.
You're seeing preliminaryresults with the data, at least
you kind of have a sense of howbig the pool is going to be.
Um, what do you hope people
take away whenthey see the maps?
Particularly in theirneighborhoods or elsewhere.
Yeah, I mean, I think I just,I hope people will begin to ask
questions about why thishappened and um what are what
(17:38):
are we what are we doing tomake sure that barriers like
this don't get perpetuated?
You know, I think Ihope that people listen.
Sometimes it's hard, especiallywhen history can be problematic
or painful.
I think a lot of people wouldrather not engage with it or
Not even read it.
(17:58):
So I hope that people are opento looking at the maps and and
thinking about whether or not,you know, the community in
which they live has a historyhere and maybe it won't.
Maybe, you know, peoplefind themselves living in a
community that's no, no, nolittle red dots on a map that
we're producing, but um I justhope people are open and that
(18:19):
they're willing to learn.
I think that's a reasonableask, um, especially when you're
collecting all this data.
Um, looking ahead, what wouldsuccess look like for the
project and then you know,extrapolate to the county.
Well, I mean, I think thatvaluing people's time is really
important, you know, that thatI'm out there recruiting these
(18:41):
volunteers, right, and passing.
Clipboards. It's what you do,Rotary meetings and Kiwanis
meetings, and it's uhlow tech but effective.
And I want so I wantto honor people's time.
I think success, it's going tobe important that the people
that volunteer their time feellike their time is well spent
and that they're part of,you know, building something
meaningful so that they, sothat we can learn what you know
(19:05):
the history of housingdiscrimination looked like in
Contra Costa.
And I think part of thatlearning will help turn the
page on that, right?
I mean, and so I think that.
Um, if we can build, buildbetter knowledge, um, kind of
break through somemisinformation or help, help
educate people about what'sout there, I think we will have
(19:26):
done a good service and also,That no person who goes to buy
or sell a house in ContraCosta gets reminded of this
blatantly, you know, and itcould be that people see these
redacted documents and thenthey want to see what the
underlying documents look like,and those will always be in our
archive, will always beavailable for people.
But success I think is
(19:47):
Getting this work done.
Looking at the maps, bothbig picture, but then also in
smaller chunks, you know, right?
With 19 cities and towns and 34unincorporated communities, you
know, we're a really diverseplace and so I'm excited about
the power of being able to have
a map of any sizeso that a community,
(20:08):
whatever however you defineyour community, whether that's
countywide or by supervisorialdistrict or um in a smaller
chunk that we will have beenable to tell the story about
what What the history ofhousing discrimination looked
like in that community.
Well, it's pretty amazing.
It's data that's existed andjust kind of sat dormant for
(20:28):
decades and what we can pull
from that and learnis pretty amazing.
If there's one takeaway fromtoday's discussion, what would
you want people toremember the most?
I would want peopleto know that.
You know, just be reminded thatContra Cost is such a vibrant,
(20:50):
diverse, interesting place, andthis is just one tiny part of
our, of our history and um andthat there's an opportunity to
be a part of it, if this isat all interesting to you.
And maybe if you're listeningto this, you might consider
lending us an hour or 2 or 10to help us get through those
(21:11):
38,000 documents overthe next couple of years.
It's going to be a big lift.
Well, thank youfor being on today.
That's it for today's show.
I'm your host Christy Jordan,Contra Costa County's public
information officer.
Thank you for joining us onthe Government Speak podcast
brought to you by the Officeof Communications and Media.
But don't just takeour word for it.
(21:32):
Stay curious, stayconnected, and stay informed.
Until next time, keep your mindopen and your facts straight.
Welcome to government Speak.
This is where we'll cut throughthe government speak to get the
information you need aboutcounty programs, services, and
events straight from the source.
Welcome to Government Speak,
Contra Costa County'sofficial podcast.
In this episode we're digginginto the hidden history written
to the deeds of homesacross Contra Costa County.
(00:20):
The Mapping Prejudice Projectis a powerful initiative
uncovering racially restrictivehousing covenants that once
shaped who could livewhere in our communities.
What does it mean to mapthese covenants today?
How does this work help usbetter understand modern day
housing inequities andwhere do we go from here?
To help us better understand,we're joined by registrar of
voters and clerkrecorder Kristen Conley.
(00:41):
Kristen, welcome to the podcast.
Thanks for having me.
So explain to us what is themapping Prejudice Project.
Well, the first thing you haveto understand is that we are
engaging in this work becauseof a 2021, AB 1466, that was
passed by theCalifornia legislature.
That required counties to comeup with a plan for identifying
(01:03):
and redacting illegalrestrictive covenants in the
public record.
Importantly, so it was anunfunded mandate, and there was
lots of flexibility about howyou would do this, but when I
came into office in 2023, ourstaff had been wrestling with
how to how to go about this andWe have been dealing with this
as homeowners have requested it.
(01:24):
And so, but what we were ableto do is partner with the
University of Minnesota'smapping Prejudice Project, or
make sure they getcredit for the name.
They're the mappingPrejudice Project.
It's part of theirlibrary system.
And so it's through a uniquepartnership with them that
we're going to be able tomeet this state mandate.
By not spending very muchmoney, but to engage the
(01:48):
community in helpingus get there.
So it's a partnership betweenour office, the University of
Minnesota Library Systemsmapping Prejudice Project, and
community volunteers.
So I even want to backup to what is a covenant?
Oh, OK.
Well, so there's lots ofdifferent, so in housing
records, right?
(02:08):
So I'm the county recorder,our office is responsible for
recording all manner ofproperty transactions, right?
And so Sometimes those are
deeds, sometimesthose are trusts.
They look all different ways.
And there's all these, there'salso things called CC&Rs, which
are basically the rulesfor a housing development.
And so for many years, andprimarily this word during the
years of 19 starting in the1920s through the 1960s, these
(02:31):
documents had limitations aboutwho could live in a place.
And so what it, so a covenant,right, is sort of a rule that
flows with a property.
And so that's whatwe're talking about.
OK. So why why is itimportant to address this now?
Give us some context.
(02:52):
Yeah. OK.
So here's the thing, is thatthere was a landmark case of
the Supreme Court in 1948 thatbasically struck down these
illegal racial restrictivecovenants on the grounds that
they violated the EqualProtection Clause.
However, the Um, they stillcontinued to be in existence,
and it wasn't until the FairHousing Act was passed in 1968
(03:12):
that it was really clear thatabsolutely these no longer were
in effect and could no longerbe considered valid parts of
something that was in effect.
So let's be clear, this hasn'tbeen in effect since 1968.
However, this language is, ifsomeone's going to buy a house
in the year 2025, and theyhappen to be buying a property
(03:35):
that had one of thesedocuments, that had some of
this language in their
document, It canbe very upsetting.
And so the current process isthat, you know, in this, I just
saw one of these examplesearlier this week of a
homeowner coming to usrequesting that this language
be redacted from theirproperty documents.
And so because they wouldn'thave been able to live in their
(03:57):
house, and that's upsetting.
So, so it's not in effectanymore, but what we're able to
do is meet The intention ofthis this law in California to
get rid of the stuff in thepublic record, and we're able
to do it in a way that's
actually going to produce a map.
So in addition to meeting themandate, we're going to be able
to visually see where these umoutdated, illegal, they're not
(04:21):
I just want to emphasize that,but see the history of where
in effect anymore.
this took place and see whetheror not it correlates to Um, any
kind of current housingsegregation that we might see
across our communities, andpeople are surprised as I go
out and talk about it and Ishow them examples of some of
this language.
People are pretty surprised.
(04:43):
We had an opportunity to to seean example of that during the
general plan video project thatwe work on our office, um, saw
it at a house in Pleasant Hill,and it was only white people
will live here and if someonewho is not white lives here,
uh, you're going to pay$25,000 to each neighbor.
Uh, for, yeah, wow, yeah.
Um, so when you, when you talkabout kind of visually laying
(05:05):
this out, what kind of sources
or tools are partof the project?
What's your team using?
Yeah, so the University ofMinnesota uses this platform
called the Zuniverseto host the documents.
And so starting in 2016,and the reason it it sort of
sprouted up at the university.
Minnesota is becauseMinneapolis is actually a city
(05:25):
with terrible history ofdisparities in homeownership.
So 78% of homeowners or excuseme, 78% of white residents of
Minneapolis are homeowners,whereas only 25% of black
residents of Minneapolisare homeowners.
And so that's that was theinspiration for University of
(05:45):
Minnesota starting this process.
And so they were able toPartner with this platform
called Zuniverse, so theycould have community volunteers
basically crowdsource toidentify where these different
covenants exist and workingwith, you know, major cities
like Milwaukee and different,different Midwest towns to
identify these um.
(06:07):
Where these documentsexist in the public record.
Now, the history of Californiais a little different, and the
University of Minnesota isexcited to partner with us.
We're their first WestCoast jurisdiction.
And so, um, and we're big,you know, so far, they have
identified 50,000.
Uh, racial covenants in in allthe different documents that
(06:29):
they've looked at total.
And just with our projectinitially, we think that just
our project in Contra Costa,after scanning and searching 9
million images from 1850 to1984, um, we've identified
likely 38,000 documents that
will need to bereviewed and redacted.
(06:52):
So we will be A massiveincrease to the number of Um,
covenants that are identifiedwhen we're all said and done.
I know it's pretty early on and
you're in the data is coming in.
Um, has anythingsurprised you yet?
Not really.
(07:12):
I mean, and again, itis super early days.
So we have more than 170 peoplethat have volunteered to help
us out with this project,for which we're grateful.
Um, we need 5 people to reviewevery potential covenant, and
so with 38,000 covenants, we
need a lot of folksto help us out.
But even just in the 1st 1700tranche of, you know, covenants
identified, we've already foundthose across just about every
(07:36):
corner of the county.
And so, right, I mean that'sAntioch and El Cerrito and
Richmond and Martinez andLafayette and Pleasant Hill.
And so, you know, there's a um
You know, we'llsee where it goes.
But, and I've, I've, I'vehad a very warm reception.
(07:57):
I've been trying to speakto every service club in the
county since January and soit's been great to talk to
Rotary Clubs and Oakley and
Elsa Bronte andeverywhere in between.
And, um, I've also beenspeaking to realtor groups, and
I was just in Danville thismorning and there's a lot of
interest in doing this.
(08:17):
I had a ton.
I'm originally from Martinezand I talked to Martinez Rotary
last night.
And had a ton of peoplesign up to to help us out.
And so, um, so I would say I'mI'm not not surprised that the
community is embracing us and,and, um, you know, and I, and I
get some skeptical questionstoo, where people are like, why
are you doing this?
(08:38):
And so, and I'm alwaysinterested in having that kind
of dialogue.
Um, and so what we're trying todo is, as the county recorder,
I think this project will helpus understand the history of
housing discrimination.
And by speaking to groups likethe Mayor's conference, which I
did a couple months ago.
I let them know that we'llshare this on an open source
way, you know, these maps thatare being developed, um, for
(08:58):
them to do with what they wantin their communities in terms
of having communityconversations about what we
what we learn in this process.
So you kind of touched onsomething I was going to ask
about next, um, volunteers,how can people get involved?
Sure. So you can email us atvolunteers@cr.cccounty.us.
(09:18):
Um, and so, and that'sactually listed.
You can go to our website,which is Contra Costavote.gov,
and we have a, if you go underthe recorder um section of our
website, there's a mappingprejudice button that you can
select, and there's details
about how to signup and get involved.
And here's the thing, there'sno age requirement, there's no
minimum or maximum.
(09:40):
There's no minimumhour requirement.
You can do this from thecomfort of your home at
whatever hour of the dayyou have some free time.
And so, um, because I wastalking to a gentleman at
Martinez Rotary last nightwho put a question mark in the
column about whether or not hewas going to volunteer because
he didn't, you don't want tocommit if he couldn't meet our
minimum hours.
And I assured him that, sir, ifyou give us 1 hour, we will say
thank you very much.
(10:03):
Um, if you give us 100, that'dbe that'd be great, but we
really will takeeverything in between.
What we're also asking is ifthere are community groups that
we can speak to or um, youknow, different volunteer
organizations that areinterested in You know, getting
folks excited about partnering,then, you know, I definitely
I'm happy to go speak to themdirectly myself, um, send our
(10:25):
records archivemanager, Joseph Barton.
He's at the, he's heading thisup for us and it's just such a,
he's so committed to understandthe history of Contra Costa.
He's such a great guy, 5thgeneration Martinez, um,
resident born and raised, um,you know, he lives in lives in
Brentwood now, but he just
loves Martinez andjust like I do.
(10:46):
And um, so yeah, no, there'slots of different ways you can
help out.
Um,
So kind of switching gears alittle bit, how do you in your
role see this this project umincreasing or influencing the
public's understanding of ourregion's history of segregation
and inequality?
(11:07):
I mean, I meet people wheneverI talk about this who are
surprised, particularly youngpeople, that this ever existed
in California, that thesekinds of restrictions were
allowed under the law.
The extent to which theywere, the impacts on the
Asian-American communityin particular, right?
That's discrimination looksdifferent in California than it
does in some of these otherplaces that that University of
(11:28):
Minnesota is working with.
Um, and so I, um, Yeah, Ithink, I think that there, it's
sort of this, you know,1968 wasn't that long ago.
And so, you know, people,people I think are surprised
that, you know, this is notsomeone else's problem, someone
(11:49):
else's communitydealt with this.
And um and I just think it'sYou know, and we're not, we're
gonna, we're going to put theredacted documents, right,
where this language is redacted.
Those will be the documents
that get circulatedmoving forward.
We'll keep the originals.
I mean, that's part of history.
And so those willstay in our archives.
(12:10):
But when you go to buy ahouse and are doing a new
transaction, the redacteddocuments will be going forward
and hopefully that will make ita uh not a painful process for
some people because we'vedefinitely gotten the feedback
that for the people thathave been asking us.
To do this on a, on a, youknow, one-off basis when
they're buying a house, it'suncomfortable and I would love
for that to beprevented in the future.
(12:33):
Um, but yeah, the history,the history is the history.
And so, um, and you know, Ithink it'll be interesting to
see what it looked like in the20s to the 60s in different
parts of our communityin particular, right?
That's really where these,these are most likely to have
been put in place and then seewhat that looks like compared
to, you know, how, what are,what are our patterns today.
(12:53):
So, um Yes, we'll see.
I think, and I think theconversations will look
different in different places.
So, and that's OK.
Once everything's mappedout, um, what comes next?
What, what should, you know,when I think about decision
makers in the county, whatshould policymakers, planners,
advocates, what shouldthey be thinking about?
(13:16):
Yeah, I mean I think I thinkthat people need to ask them
like what what doeswhat surprises them?
What are they learning, right?
So in in a county ofalmost 1.2 million people.
I don't know the total housingstock currently, right?
But to have 38,000 or so, youknow, hits that are going to be
mapped out in some pattern.
You know, I think that weshould ask ourselves important
(13:37):
questions about if we've really
overcome theseprevious barriers.
And so, you know, there areplenty of people that work
specifically on housing.
I think city council membersneed to have conversations
about how much housing they'reapproving or opposing in their
particular communities and andhow that connects to what, what
particular, youknow, history is.
(13:59):
But I'm proud that we'regoing to be able to meet this
unfunded mandate.
Without having a six-figurecontract go or 7 figure really
in most places, a 7 figurecontract going to a private
sector company that's justgonna do the redactions.
I think that the approach we'retaking is going to be stretched
public, you know, really hardpublic dollars the furthest,
(14:22):
and then we're gonna, and we'redoing it in conversation with
the community.
And so, you know, I think it'llbe, you know, I think I know
that all the members of theboard of supervisors are going
to be interested in this andI'm happy to talk to, you know,
kind of share it with people.
And what's great is thatthe, um, our partners at the
University of Minnesota mappingPrejudice project, they're
(14:44):
going to be buildingthe map along the way.
So we're going to start to seethings even before we get too
deep into the, intodoing all of the work.
And and it's, and we'redoing it in a random sample.
So it's like I don't, you know,you may come across a volunteer
may come across something inhis or her own community, but
one reason I'm going to everycorner of Contra Costa to
(15:06):
recruit volunteers is that Iwant this to be something that
where we don't just havevolunteered for one particular
part of the county.
Looking at the whole county.
I want, I want there tobe buying from everybody.
So we're going to have mapsalong the way, which I think
will be, um, there'll be somegratification for volunteers
who are helping us build this,um, and so, yeah, I think, I
(15:28):
think, I think there'sgoing to be some learning.
I think people likelearning their history.
Even when it's hard.
Um, we kind of touched on thisa little bit, but you know, um,
How could this inform currenthousing policy, land use
policy, um, racialequity efforts?
Yeah, I mean, let me be clear,as the county clerk recorder
(15:50):
and registrar voters,everything I do, I do on a
nonpartisan basis and andthere's no question that land
use and housing are reallybig issues at the local level.
They can often
Kick off a lot of feelings, um,and there's lots of different
opinions aboutthat kind of stuff.
(16:10):
But I do think that there's areal hunger, particularly among
young people, to figure outhow can we make our communities
more affordable, you know, andI know lots of people in my age
demographic as we're watchingour kids age is how, how, how
is California going to continueto be this land of opportunity
when we've we haven't solved
(16:31):
the affordability crisis at all.
And You know, I've lived backhere as a full-fledged adult
for 15 years now, and I lamentthat there's a lot of lot of
work that stillneeds to be done.
We haven't tackled alot of our challenges.
And so I want to stay in mylane because I'm a nonpartisan
clerk recorder and registrar,but I think that I hopefully
(16:51):
can be facilitating importantconversations in lots of other
places by Um, doing this workand producing these maps for
our different communities.
I'm sure there'll bediscussions around
reconciliation, communityhealing, potential reparation.
There's there's a lot.
(17:12):
A lot comes to mind.
Um.
You're seeing preliminaryresults with the data, at least
you kind of have a sense of howbig the pool is going to be.
Um, what do you hope people
take away whenthey see the maps?
Particularly in theirneighborhoods or elsewhere.
Yeah, I mean, I think I just,I hope people will begin to ask
questions about why thishappened and um what are what
(17:38):
are we what are we doing tomake sure that barriers like
this don't get perpetuated?
You know, I think Ihope that people listen.
Sometimes it's hard, especiallywhen history can be problematic
or painful.
I think a lot of people wouldrather not engage with it or
Not even read it.
(17:58):
So I hope that people are opento looking at the maps and and
thinking about whether or not,you know, the community in
which they live has a historyhere and maybe it won't.
Maybe, you know, peoplefind themselves living in a
community that's no, no, nolittle red dots on a map that
we're producing, but um I justhope people are open and that
(18:19):
they're willing to learn.
I think that's a reasonableask, um, especially when you're
collecting all this data.
Um, looking ahead, what wouldsuccess look like for the
project and then you know,extrapolate to the county.
Well, I mean, I think thatvaluing people's time is really
important, you know, that thatI'm out there recruiting these
(18:41):
volunteers, right, and passing.
Clipboards. It's what you do,Rotary meetings and Kiwanis
meetings, and it's uhlow tech but effective.
And I want so I wantto honor people's time.
I think success, it's going tobe important that the people
that volunteer their time feellike their time is well spent
and that they're part of,you know, building something
meaningful so that they, sothat we can learn what you know
(19:05):
the history of housingdiscrimination looked like in
Contra Costa.
And I think part of thatlearning will help turn the
page on that, right?
I mean, and so I think that.
Um, if we can build, buildbetter knowledge, um, kind of
break through somemisinformation or help, help
educate people about what'sout there, I think we will have
(19:26):
done a good service and also,That no person who goes to buy
or sell a house in ContraCosta gets reminded of this
blatantly, you know, and itcould be that people see these
redacted documents and thenthey want to see what the
underlying documents look like,and those will always be in our
archive, will always beavailable for people.
But success I think is
(19:47):
Getting this work done.
Looking at the maps, bothbig picture, but then also in
smaller chunks, you know, right?
With 19 cities and towns and 34unincorporated communities, you
know, we're a really diverseplace and so I'm excited about
the power of being able to have
a map of any sizeso that a community,
(20:08):
whatever however you defineyour community, whether that's
countywide or by supervisorialdistrict or um in a smaller
chunk that we will have beenable to tell the story about
what What the history ofhousing discrimination looked
like in that community.
Well, it's pretty amazing.
It's data that's existed andjust kind of sat dormant for
(20:28):
decades and what we can pull
from that and learnis pretty amazing.
If there's one takeaway fromtoday's discussion, what would
you want people toremember the most?
I would want peopleto know that.
You know, just be reminded thatContra Cost is such a vibrant,
(20:50):
diverse, interesting place, andthis is just one tiny part of
our, of our history and um andthat there's an opportunity to
be a part of it, if this isat all interesting to you.
And maybe if you're listeningto this, you might consider
lending us an hour or 2 or 10to help us get through those
(21:11):
38,000 documents overthe next couple of years.
It's going to be a big lift.
Well, thank youfor being on today.
That's it for today's show.
I'm your host Christy Jordan,Contra Costa County's public
information officer.
Thank you for joining us onthe Government Speak podcast
brought to you by the Officeof Communications and Media.
But don't just takeour word for it.
(21:32):
Stay curious, stayconnected, and stay informed.
Until next time, keep your mindopen and your facts straight.
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