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12/12/2023 - Minutes City of Tigard 13125 SW Hall Blvd., Tigard, OR 97223 | 503 -639-4171 | www.tigard-or.gov | Page 1 of 1 Community Navigator Ad Hoc Committee Meeting Minutes Tuesday, December 12, 2023 | 4:30-6PM | Virtual-Microsoft Teams Start time: 4:29pm Attendees: • Community Committee Members: Councilor Jai Raj Singh, Jimmy Brown, Kelli Pement, Valerie Sasaki • Teammates: City Manager Steve Rymer, Strategic Initiatives Program Manager Kim Ezell, Management Analyst Alex Richardson • Special Guest: Kurt Jun, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging Manager Recap of last meeting -ended with statement that - The perception is that the city does not have an established structure and process for identifying and measuring gaps in service for unserved community members. There's also a lack of process for continuous monitoring and improvement. Need to evaluate – are the things we are doing working? Kurt Jun, DEIB Manager, is already working to address those gaps and is attending this meeting to describe that work. Brough to talk about one the internal assessment he did when he first joined the city, the external assessment that's underway right now with the equity mapping project and then the citywide equity toolkit, which work is working to systemize equity into decision making across the entire city. Looking for reactions & feedback to that. Kurt Jun – Slideshow Presentation 1. Commitment to Equity 2. Executive Summary: Assessment & Recommendations 3. 2023 YTD – Diverse Workforce Demographics a. Question about management numbers versus non-management. Response – we have not implemented the “Rooney Rule,” but HR has scrubbed the names and identifying features of applicants from the applications. Also, diversifying interview panels. 4. Why Race? 5. Racial Equity Action Plan 6. Equity Mapping Solutions Project Team a. Comment: define map-based solution? The equity indicators relate to walkable, healthy, accessible city goals. The mapping solutions will provide us a deeper understanding of its impacts, whether there's a disproportionate impact or what are the adverse impacts intended or unintended. But is this approach top-down? Will data come from within the community? 7. Equity Metrics City of Tigard 13125 SW Hall Blvd., Tigard, OR 97223 | 503 -639-4171 | www.tigard-or.gov | Page 1 of 1 8. Call to Action 9. Citywide Equity Toolkit Discussion How to operationalize equity? Forums of community engagement, representation. It will help our staff by standardizing processes & decision-making, focused on outcomes. 320% increase in Hispanic/Latino community; huge driving force in the economy. Largest ethnic protected class in the city. Just held second El Tigre festival in the city. How to measure a sense of belonging? Something you can feel or not. Important affinity group for engaging a large community in our population, build camaraderie, bridging differences—provided opportunity for that to happen. Follow-up questions: stakeholder input only happened at the top of the arrow workflow {see slide deck}. Government work can be so introspective but must also be grassroots. Concern that we don’t know what we don’t know. Are voices represented in the decisions being made? How do we ensure we are hearing diverse voices at every step of the way and allocating resources in a dynamic way? How do we react to growth if say – we see an influx of an Eastern European population – are systems durable? Are we being extrospective as well? Other cities further along than us – identifying aspects like education – how do we work with school districts and all through that, need to develop more robust ways of collecting data? What is it that we need to be listening to? Community engagement plan – strategize in innovative ways. At most meetings it’s always the same people we hear from. The reason we are here is that it would be someone who would be external-facing. Perspective on we have been tasked with – do we have a need for a more externally-facing focus? Role of DEIB Manager was brought because of the need. Community Navigator position – ambiguity of the description of engagement and bridging – what would role/need be? We have Community Engagement Coordinators/specialists. Those people could serve this role if they built more capacity. We might already have those fixtures in the organization to engage the diverse public. How do we know that those Community Engagement Coordinators are reaching the entire community? There could be an opportunity to refine that. Really value the mapping component because it can make the info more visually accessible and help determine gaps when combined with census data. Numbers and data really influence Council decisions. But with a Community Nav position – continuous feedback mechanism to ground-truth the data that comes from that. Staff does really extensive outreach but there is a potential to capture stories, more centralized role for a community navigator. Slides about economic development – how does the city take a look at the taxpayer resources—dollars put into the city and how much gets put back into the community. Event at Cook Park was amazing to be able to see richness of the Spanish-speaking community. Community events are great – how does the city look to increase the activity of communities of color in its contracting processes? What mechanism City of Tigard 13125 SW Hall Blvd., Tigard, OR 97223 | 503 -639-4171 | www.tigard-or.gov | Page 1 of 1 do they use to find vendors? How do we share that wealth into the city – help with income gap. Value of a community navigator is to assist the community members to connect with those seeking contracts. Community Navigator – right now, discussing 3 versions – adding too much to a plate of an individual – procurement, hiring, communications oversight? Discussion of something to oversee all the areas of the city already doing this. How are we engaging the community. How do we ensure that these efforts are coordinated? We are all clear that our north star is the community. The city’s diversity spend? Rubric the Finance dept is developing; countless other opportunities that CD is supporting small business supports. Many pockets internally developing programs all to impact the community. Current Communications teams already doing this with different communities—do you feel like what you’re doing is enough to help you get the data you need to decide if we need another person or is what we’re doing enough? The cultural connective ability. Opportunity for current existing teams to develop. Need better cultural proficiency for professional development possibly. Nuance to different cultures – abilities and skills needed to engage communities—an opportunity for us to grow in that area— can we do that with our existing staff members? How does a city institutionalize this work? HOW do we do it and what is required of that? That may be the question the committee wants to leave with the budget committee. Should consider recommending that we fund an external consultant on if we are approaching the problem correctly – if we are being resilient to the changing needs of our community. Traditional top- down approach. The way to change that model with data – how to create a feedback loop to allow us to be responsive to community’s needs. The data that the team is collecting—will that answer that need? Data systems we’re talking about requires self-identification but doesn’t necessarily work for newer communities. What is the additional piece we are missing? Maybe it is not one person but an enhanced process. There may be other tools that could help them do things better. How do we still connect with folks who don’t have privilege? Allocate funds to bring in a consultant –here’s how you build a resilient feedback loop to make sure we are hearing all the voices. Flipping the script on top-down approach-community-driven solutions. The communities know what the solutions are to solving the inequities they are experiencing. Provide more accountability. Approach that could be used across departments. Interpretation services at a meeting for example—not enough awareness. Challenge is to take a different look—from the outside looking in. {An example was shared to illustrate this} Taking what the community felt like it needed versus what the officials thought the city needed. You tell us what it is that we need to do to improve our connections between you and the city. Being more inclusive in how we bring the community and government together. Are we approaching the communities of color adequately – paying someone to come in and do something that the city is already doing? Are there are opportunities to do it better—yes. Perhaps there City of Tigard 13125 SW Hall Blvd., Tigard, OR 97223 | 503 -639-4171 | www.tigard-or.gov | Page 1 of 1 are existing roles that can already do this but things could be dovetailed together rather than a nebulous approach to the work. Honing in on specific need we’re looking to address. But the needs identified here could be addressed within current city team. Difference between internally-driven process vs. externally-driven process. What are you not doing now that you should be doing? Hard to ask someone inside to ask that. Need perspective from someone outside paradigm. We don’t know where the blind spots are. Also senior, disability, and LGBTQ+ communities. How would an external consultant come and audit what we’re doing? It depends on who the consultant is. Someone very boots on the ground. Someone with established credibility within communities of color. Discuss next week—who is that person, recommendations where to start that search. End time: 6:00pm