homeowner or rent in Oakwood. She suggested more rental options, changing zoning rules to allow for apartment-style housing, or to expand Oakwood Schools to people living outside the city to help welcome a more diverse population in Oakwood. She closed her comments by stating that she does not want to move her family to Oakwood if they are just going to be surrounded by other white people because that is not the world we live in.

Coco Zhang shared that she has lived in Oakwood since she was 12 years old and she graduated from Oakwood High School last year. Ms. Zhang shared that she follows the diversity issues that have recently emerged and she has wanted to address these issues for a long time. Ms. Zhang stated that she can count the number of people of color in her graduating class on two hands, and black people on one finger. There are zero teachers of color. As one of the few students of color that graduated from Oakwood Schools, she has personally experienced the overwhelming “whiteness” rendered onto the student body. She stated that the numbers are out there but it seems that numbers have fallen on deaf ears. Her mother came to this Council in vain trying to get City Council to acknowledge the report that concluded that black people are discriminated against by Oakwood police, so she is trying a different route in her comments today. As someone who grew up in Oakwood and has experienced firsthand what a wonderful community Oakwood can be, but also what an ugly thing it can be. She recalled times in school where she directly experienced (and her sister has experienced) instances of blatant insensitivity and racial discrimination. She stated that something must change. Coming back to Oakwood, after attending college in Los Angeles, Oakwood’s failures are starker than ever before against the backdrop of a country with growing civil unrest over these issues. She said that she has been taught a very sanitized and one-sided version of history and the lack of diversity in Oakwood Schools promotes a homogenous culture that is not comfortable and is not equipped to learn about different cultures and backgrounds. Oakwood Schools Administration and Oakwood Board of Education members are entirely white and Oakwood teachers are 99% white. She invited Oakwood City Schools to take a closer look at their hiring practice, and to carefully and genuinely examine the culture they foster beyond some vain diversity project that no one cares about. She agrees with the previous visitor comments that housing is the foremost problem. Without new families coming to Oakwood, the schools themselves have no real hope of change. She dislikes regulations against apartment buildings in Oakwood, which Oakwood residents fear would bring in the “wrong sort of people.” She closed her comments by noting if everyone is so proud of the Oakwood Schools, but then refuse others the ability to take part in it out of the fear that it would lead to lower quality, then the true efficacy of the school system should be questioned.

Mayor Duncan shared that City Council is painfully aware of the controversy regarding apartments that extends back several years. He added that approximately 28% of the housing units in Oakwood are rentals, many either two-family or four-family apartments. There are not as many large complex apartments like the newer ones at Old River, but this is more due to the small footprint of Oakwood being only 2.2 square miles.

Mayor Duncan thanked the visitors for their comments. With no other callers wishing to address City Council, Mayor Duncan closed the Visitor portion of the meeting.

A copy of the ordinance, having been placed on the desks of each member of Council prior to introduction, was read by title.

Mr. Stephens explained that this is a second reading of an ordinance to ban the use of “dockless electric scooters and bicycles” in city rights-of-way and on public property.

Dockless electric scooters and bicycles, which are available to be rented on demand from unstaffed locations, arrived in many cities suddenly and unexpectedly, and proliferated rapidly. Some of the most visible examples include “Spin,” “Bird,” and “Lime” scooters, among others.

These shared mobility devices are largely unregulated. In cities they are available, they are frequently abandoned by users wherever they happen to stop: in streets, sidewalks, doorways,