Highland Park looking to add partner to help develop permanent place of remembrance

Do Tank, a small Chicago-based consulting company, is one step closer to joining Highland Park’s search for a location for its planned permanent place of remembrance, honoring victims of the 2022 July 4th shooting. 

City Council members heard from the company during their Monday Committee of the Whole session and learned that it came with a recommendation from the working group created to find that location, with help from community members. City Manager Ghida Neukirch seconded the recommendation.

Mayor Nancy Rotering, who chairs the working group, said that after individually researching the issue for close to two years, and speaking with people worldwide facing the same challenge, she was excited about the possibility of working with Do Tank. 

“There isn’t really probably an entity that meets every criteria we put out, but I feel like this group really does a nice job with the kind of nuanced approach” to reaching community members and getting their input that city staff and elected officials might not have, Rotering said. 

The working group was formed in the fall of 2023 and has been meeting regularly since. After getting input from community members and putting together a list of potential locations for the place of remembrance — billed as a place to honor the seven people killed and the city’s resiliency, and as an accessible place for reflection and solace — the city put out a request for proposal that netted it 22 firms. 

A staff report to the council stated that the working group interviewed representatives from the top four companies and felt that Do Tank could best do the job, using a “trauma-informed” approach to gathering responses from people, then analyzing those responses.

If approved by City Council, the consultants would be required to create and administer a community-wide survey in both English and Spanish, and to hold at least four focus groups. They would also be expected to meet with the working group at least twice and with the council at least once. 

Neukirch said that there are few such groups nationally that deal with mass violence. 

Emily Blazer, a business designer and facilitator for the agency, said that while Do Tank hasn’t previously dealt with trauma from mass killings, many of its team members have worked with entities and people who have endured other trauma, and have communicated meaningfully with them. 

During her presentation, Blazer said that the work Do Tank does for health-care companies and workers can translate well to the Highland Park mission: “What we’re talking about today is not a health care matter, but the crossover is that this (project) is talking about care of people.”

Do Tank’s 17 members come from 11 different cultures, she said — that includes Spanish-speaking members. She also said that she and some other team members have recently started work to become certified trauma-informed practitioners.

Councilmember Andrés Tapia told Blazer he supports Do Tank’s methodology, because he is familiar with the concept of human-centered design in his work; however, he asked her if any of the projects the company has worked on had to deal with what he called cross-cultural challenges: “How do you break through?”

Blazer said Do Tank is multicultural and outlined ways she had navigated working with a company that had a CEO with a different culture. 

Councilmember Annette Lidawer asked if the company ever worked with the Department of Justice on projects, or with other firms whose experiences might be more trauma informed. Neukirch said any consultant chosen would be part of a team along with city staff, the latter of which does have relationships both with the Department of Justice’s Office of Victims of Crimes, and with communities across the country that have endured shootings. 

Neukirch told council members that once an agreement was reached with Do Tank or any consultant the council chooses, the agreement would go on the next available council agenda. 

“Subject to council’s approval, we’d have a kick-off meeting with the working group and the selected consultant,” she said. “And from that kick-off meeting, we’d establish and firm up the steps that would be undertaken, the associated timelines, and how the process would be undertaken.” 

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