Whenever possible, I'd love to hear about sustainability, specifically, how did those cities sustain their vision from administration to administration?

Also, this is Faustina Cuevas (she/ella) from City of Lynn. I don't think my name may be reflected appropriately on this zoom account.

If a city has a D&E Committee and assumes this committee will be the one to do the work and make sure the city is meeting Equity values, how can the committee be most effective?

Also how do you get true input from those affected?

Convening

Supporting the initiatives publicly

Evolving procurement

Using tools to consider equity when making new policies

It starts by putting the discussion on the agenda, then engaging the communities of interest to inform the discussion, enact and fund policies

introducing transformative ideas of planning and policy

Employ diverse staff and elevating them to upper positions

Elevating the voices of their constituents who are most impacted by racial inequalities

Listening!

Bringing stakeholders together

vetting of procedures from the frontline perspective

Implementing tools

Improving existing programs to increase equity

Staff can IDENTIFY where equity problems exist

Modeling behavior as a result of new policies

Working with their departments to normalize racial equity discussions and policies

Implementing changes put forward by elected leaders

I think "you are being divisive" is a BIG one people throw out as a coded response.

That went by fast what were the 4 states?

Rhode Island NY Minn and CA

Thank you!

We've found these conversations benefit from a very skilled facilitator who can negotiate the divide that often exists between world views, and manage the intense emotion that people on either side of a conversation bring to the table. That skill seems almost as important as the fundamentals of the model that supports the dialogue.

Are there source lists for data that can help very small staff municipalities know where to look? Vermont communities have such small minority populations that many of us probably don't even know where relevant data might be.

I have a similar question as Elaine Wang. Also in VT and concerns have been raised that disaggregated data may have negative impact on identifying our BIPoC community members.

Center for Rural Studies at UVM - collect state, census and federal data

Thank you all.

Thank you Seantae!

thank you!

Thank you!

Thank you!

Important work...thank you!

Thank you.

Thank you