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2021-08-04 Diversity Commission MinutesCITY OF EDMONDS DIVERSITY COMMISSION August 4, 2021 Meeting conducted via Zoom COMMISSIONERS PRESENT Ardeth Weed, Chair Dean Olson, Vice -Chair Nikki Okimoto Glaros Mindy Woods Sarah Mixson Alison Alfonzo Pence Sekou Kon6 Donnie Griffin Alberto Orej el Malfav6n Caitlin Chung, Student Rep Councilmember Luke Distelhorst, ex offfcio COMMISSIONERS ABSENT GUESTS PRESENT Casey Colley, Youth Commission Chair Brian Potter STAFF PRESENT Patrick Doherty, Director Megan Luttrell, Program Coordinator Economic Development & Community Services Arwen Marohn, Commission Coordinator 6:00 P.M. — Call to Order and Land Acknowledgement: "We acknowledge the original inhabitants of this place, the Sdohobsh (Snohomish) people and their successors the Tulalip Tribes, who since time immemorial have hunted, fished, gathered, and taken care of these lands. We respect their sovereignty, their right to self-determination, and we honor their sacred spiritual connection with the land and water." - City Council Land Acknowledgment 1. Roll Call: Ardeth called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. Dean read the land acknowledgement. 2. Approval of Agenda: Agenda approved by consensus. 3. Approval of July 7, 2021 Summary: Approved by consensus. Typo in policy report "Two" is missing the "t". 4. Public Comment: Brian Potter wants the bias reporting portal removed. He says it shares unintentional crime information with the public. City Council has made it hard for them to do the work and this is a disaster for the Commission and public acceptance of equity, diversity, inclusion issues. He says there are many leaders that do not feel the portal was well thought out. What happens when folks see nothing happen after anonymous reporting? What are we going to learn and what are we going to do moving forward? 5. Update from the City: Patrick Doherty Patrick gave an update on the reporting portal and shared his screen with the Commissioners. He brought up that the Policy Committee was talking about office of civil rights and had started researching this from other cities. The portal suggestion had been raised during this time because of the awareness that many hate incidences are not reported. It was one of a few Meeting Summary Diversity Commission August 4, 2021 Page 1 suggestions of trying to find a way people felt safe to report incidences of hate or discrimination. After Patrick discussed the portal idea with the Mayor, the Mayor wanted to go ahead and put it up on the city website. Already, comments, feedback and questions have been available for people to report for a long time, but this is the first time there has been focused bias/discrimination reporting tool. The City is currently in discussion with the legal team and have reworded it to include that people sending in a report should not include names. So far, the city staff have received a lot of bogus reports, joking around and name calling. They have not seen a true report yet. Patrick reemphasized that we, City staff, are not the police, we are learning about our community and how we can support. Criminal activity is directly reported to the police. Donnie asked if there was any strategic thinking or planning before launching? Who is we? Patrick said staff. he, Megan and Arwen would be reviewing form submissions, as appropriate. If a report is related to criminal activity, it will be forwarded to Edmonds Police. If it appears to be related to violation of housing, employment or other state or federal laws, the reporting party will be asked if they want to have it reported to the Human Rights Commission. Patrick said they discussed and reviewed the reporting portal with legal before putting it out on the website. In most cases there won't be any follow-up unless the individual reporting wants it. On another note, three candidates for Police Chief just spent the day in Edmonds, first interviewing with the Mayor, then with Council, and finally with the public in a meet -and -greet at the Plaza Room. The Mayor is interested in the input from the public via a QR code survey and input from Council. He will identify his preferred candidate. Two memos from the Diversity Commission from our last meeting went to the Mayor and are going to Council this week. 6. Youth Commission Update: Casey Colley — Chair of Edmonds Youth Commission gave a brief update. The Commission met last weekend for an in -person retreat at the Willow Creek outdoor hatchery. They are switching up leadership roles, learning how to use the Canvas training app for social media. Owen has been running Instagram, meetings and agenda and is working on getting other Commissioners to develop more content. They talked about the hate discrimination incident reporting portal, and they support it. They were not sure why people were opposed to it and felt the comments from the adults at the 7/27 Council meeting were very crude and rude — quite shocking. They feel there is a better way to communicate their feelings than how they did it. They are currently recruiting for positions they need filled. All returning members are Seniors and they are in need younger candidates. They will be doing outreach at the end of this month. 7. Old Business: a. Update on online bias reporting portal & office of human rights. Alison shared that the idea of an office of civil rights came up several months ago. Some community members question if there is racism in Edmonds. We needed more information to see if this office was truly needed and that is why the desire to Meeting Summary Diversity Commission August 4, 2021 Page 2 gather data was discussed. Alison opened the discussion to the other Commissioners: Ardeth shared her appreciation for Councilmember Luke Distelhorst's comments on the bias reporting portal at the recent Council meeting. Donnie also acknowledged Luke's stand at Council. Donnie's concern is how he read about how the Diversity Commission is connected to the published portal, but the Commission did not have an opportunity to fully discuss how we were going to collect data or if we should have an office of civil rights. He recognized that Alison has been working very hard to find out how the data is collected and who is collecting. The portal is strange to him. It is now online without much public representation or time for the Diversity Commission to discuss. It would have been better if Patrick and the Mayor could have sat down with the DC before putting it up. He likes the Mayor's "let's do it" attitude, but this isn't as inclusive as it could be, especially for those who experience these issues. How we get up on this should be a central part of our conversation. Sarah mentioned that several people in the community have brought up the misuse of the portal. Is there a process for addressing those? Patrick said they had received messages that had names in the first couple of days, but the language on the website was updated to specify not to include names. As far as deleting, if it's public record we can't delete it and he's not sure what the legality of redacting would be. Luke said it would be helpful to have some guidance on there from legal. Alison asked if a statement was going to be sent to My Edmonds News? She feels the information on the website needs to be published somewhere, so people see what it really says. Patrick will make a note of that. He said a press release went out, Dori Monson discussed on radio show and mischaracterized the portal and intent, and two days later the producer contacted Patrick. He gave him the full information on the portal but not receive a response. Donnie said if the portal stays, should there be some sort of public information campaign. A consistent and ongoing message to get to what this about and how it works. Patrick shared that the Mayor wants to keep it up and that it will be evaluate after a couple of weeks. We can share more information on social media as well. Nikki likes the idea of providing the community with more information and FAQs. This may be the beginning of push back on anything we do. The Office of Human rights will probably have pushback. We need to try to be as transparent as we can and we just keep going forward. Alberto said it might help to highlight the text that is most important on the webpage and add the legal information in. Meeting Summary Diversity Commission August 4, 2021 Page 3 Dean said people can easily add names and make up complaints. Also, a person can print it out and further spread it. The portal could also allow for suggestions for improvement to the city or positive comments. Finally, no mention of bias or discrimination toward people with disabilities. That's a big problem. This could be a good example for suggestions. Ardeth agrees with Dean's feedback. Can anyone see the information that is submitted? Patrick said not the general public, but someone can ask for the public records. Mindy agrees with Nikki and Donnie, but also feels for the people who need this the most. She wants to see us explain the portal and share on I am Edmonds page. Arwen suggested revising the form so that it can only collect data and have people include a contact if they want to. No open-ended text comment boxes. Luke also suggested tailoring the form for the needs of the City/Diversity Commission. Mindy shared that her son likes that he can report the incident and to let the city know this type of thing is happening. Donnie was wondering if he or people he knew would report this way. Would he want to spend the time to do it? Can we test with communities who experience this daily? Seek feedback. NAACP, C3, LGTBQ+ and Disability communities as an example. Ask them if they would use it, why, why not? This would help us to customize to the people we are most trying to reach. Alison shared that the partnership committee talked about partnering with other organizations to have a summit to talk. We should open it up to the full Commission with these partners. How they feel about what is happening and others out there would have good suggestions on what we need to do. Patrick said we had a summit previously. The intent was to discuss issues of commonality but ended up being more of a show of what each organization did. Donnie shared there are DEI commissions all around us and that maybe something conducted at the college would be of value. Mindy mentioned having Suni, from Shoreline, come and talk with the Commission. The City of Kenmore is ready to start to a DEI taskforce and will be reaching out to other city organizations to work with them. Comments from Chat: "Not sure if this was already mentioned, but perhaps highlighting the examples of surrounding community colleges (Shoreline, Edmonds, Everett) and cities who have adopted something similar?" — Brook's iPhone Meeting Summary Diversity Commission August 4, 2021 Page 4 "I think a key to this is getting people to trust this system. So that they can remain anonymous and feel safe to share their experiences. Also letting the targeted populations know that it is even there, .. Public outreach." — Bill Phipps Dean would like to see a common webpage with DEI activities and initiatives. Donnie mentioned Suni does something like that every week or every other week. He encourages the Chair and Vice Chair to get her to the next meeting. Approved. 8. Subgroup Reports: a. Policy — A memo is drafted for District -Based Council membership issue and will put on hold until the end of November — after the election and get some census counts in place. City of Edmonds Complaints protections process. From Dean's notes: The city of Edmonds Diversity Commission's policy committee discussed the idea of a City of Edmonds complaint process. We discussed the protected categories who quietly tell us about their experiences in Edmonds. These groups include women, LGTBQ+, ethnic, race as well as people with disabilities, all who have no formal way to express their suggestions and complaints to the city of Edmonds. We did not vote n the complaint process (yet), but we contributed to the process. b. Partnerships & Outreach — No report c. Events —Mayor wants to do something this year for Indigenous Peoples Day, and input was sought from the Diversity Commission, and the Events committee met with Mike Evans, Snohomish, to help guide on how to move forward in the process. The City Parks Department is taking the lead on the event, and they will be sharing the unveiling of Land Acknowledgement art piece concept. hi parallel, the Edmonds Museum will dedicate their Indigenous carving they have with the Tulalip Tribes done by Ty Juvenil. Research has been done and the city is focusing on four tribes that have ties with Edmonds, the Snohomish in the Tulalip Tribes, Suquamish, Port Gamble S'Klallam and Snoqualmie Tribes. The Mayor wrote to all those tribal leaders and mentioned it is our intention to do a modest observance that may include resources on the website, storytelling, dance and films. So far, we have received one response from Snoqualmie Tribe and Tulalip is working with the Edmonds Museum staff. Donnie attended Blue Heron Canoe Family Healing Waters Event and asked if they are also included in this program? Patrick said no. He referenced the politics on surrounding officially recognized tribal members and those that are not. He said the city has to follow the official recognized tribal structure. If we break from that protocol, we can imperil our relationships with other tribal nations. Alison mentioned she was in a meeting earlier today and someone from Solid Ground organization said they pay rent to the Duwamish Tribe. She feels it is a wonderful idea to Meeting Summary Diversity Commission August 4, 2021 Page 5 pay rent back to a tribe. Nez Perce tribe recently bought back their land, unfortunate they had to buy land that was stolen, but likes the idea of paying back rent to the tribe. Sarah said the events group is currently viewing the films for the diversity film series. Patrick shared that we should have the movies selected right now as we need to create a poster and advertise this September. [Discussion took place on of some of the films.] Nikki - Give deadline and decisions can be made. Commission agreed to allow the Events Committee to make final selections of films. New Business: a. Review Race Equity Diversity Inclusion (REDI) Program Manager Job Description Donnie asked if the Commission plays a role in making recommendations or providing advice to incumbents. It would be a great idea to make a presentation of the equity roadmap process to the Commission, so we are included and that we have an answer on what the city is doing. We used to have the city officials come and talk with the Diversity Commission. We need to have HR director visit with us as well as the new social worker. Patrick stated that some of the groundwork the Diversity Commission did led to this position. Mindy asked if there is an emphasis on ADA inclusion and a focus on with that position. Patrick said the ADA position is specific to that. This position will be involved but it won't be the focus. 9. Commissioner's Corner: Nikki shared that her 18-year-old voted for the first time on Tuesday! She called out her appreciation of the Youth Commission and other youth who are running campaigns in the city. They are an inspiration and she wanted to thank them for their care of our community. Alberto shared his shock regarding comments on the bias portal by adults at the City Council meeting ... it was disheartening to hear. It shows a lot of character, of the Youth Commission, that they can say share their thoughts on the portal and reactions. Sarah mentioned that the gathering outside Council last night was very encouraging to her. She appreciated being invited to the dinner with the Blue Heron Canoe people and that spouses were also invited and got to meet each other. Feels she is making good friends with everyone and would like to see us do more of this. She values all the Commissioners. Meeting Summary Diversity Commission August 4, 2021 Page 6 Alison recently finished a short-term contract with State Department of Education involving API students and families and what they should be learning in the state. She mentioned the young people from the Edmonds area who showed up to speak and she was astounded by what they talked about and what they suggested. She's very proud of the young people in our state. Luke shared his gratitude for the work the Diversity Commission does even though tensions are high. He appreciates the resiliency of the Commissioners and reminded them to practice selfcare. Sekou shared it was nice seeing everybody the other day at the Blue Heron Canoe family event. He would like to experience more of that connection. Donnie thanked Dean for making a good presentation on the Diversity Commission report prior with the City Council. He appreciates seeing Mindy upright and vertical after her surgery. He mentioned that Arwen did a tremendous job to put the Blue Heron Family Event together and it turned out great. He acknowledged that Patrick has been the target of his arrows occasionally, but he appreciates the connection between us and the Council. He feels that if both the REDI position and the Diversity Commission can work together it will be a model for all Snohomish County. He thanked Luke for being brave and speaking at the Council meeting. Mindy thanked Arwen or putting the Blue Heron Event together. It was amazing! She mentioned the gifts from the family to everyone. She too appreciated the opportunity to see everyone in person. It was wonderful to come together as Commissioners in a casual way to celebrate. She was grateful to hear Mike Evans tell stories and educate and felt the canoe send off the next morning was amazing. She feels the Commission needs to push forward through the difficulties, continue making change that so important and to create momentum to be an example for other cities. Ardeth noted that Luke's speech at Council was beautiful. Arwen thanked the Commissioners for recognizing her efforts with the Blue Heron Canoe family event but shared she did little to make it happen and that it really consisted of many people to make the event take place. She shared the canoe family is now in La Conner and is continuing their two -week trip. Patrick noted that the Commissioners are leaders in this region doing the work. He gets inquiries from other cities that want to start this kind of commission in their own communities. He reminded everyone that the Uptown Evening Market is happening again next Thursday. Adjourn — 8:10 PM Next meeting: Wednesday, September 1st, 2021 at 6:00 PM, Zoom Meeting Summary Diversity Commission August 4, 2021 Page 7