Item B: City Council Goal - Enhance Understanding of Race Issues and Improve Race Relationships Action Plan

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ATTACHMENT B Central Services Human Resource And Risk Services City of Eugene 777 Pearl Street, Room 101 M Eugene, Oregon 97401 EMORANDUM (541) 682-5061 (541) 682-6831 FAX www.eugene-or.gov Date: May 7, 2007 To: Mayor Piercy and City Council From: Lauren Chouinard, 682-5663 Human Resource and Risk Services Director Subject: Community Committee on Race Recommendations As an outcome of the July 2006 meeting between Mayor Piercy, City Councilors and 65 members of the communities of color, Council formed an ad hoc group called the Community Committee on Race (CCR). The CCR was co-facilitated by Councilor Ortiz and Carmen Urbina and met six times between November 2006 and April 2007. The group of more than 15 people was a rich cross-section of passionate and engaged community members. Over the course of the meetings the CCR reviewed over 100 suggestions made at the communities of color meeting in July. They condensed and prioritized those into 55 possible strategies and action steps that would improve race relationships and awareness of race issues in the community. The complete list of possible strategies and action steps is presented in attachment D. The group then worked to focus the larger list into a set of recommendations for Council’s consideration as possible additions to the “Enhance Understanding of Race Issues and Improve Race Relationships” Council goal action plan. This set of recommendations is presented in attachment C. Both of the attachments contain information on each item regarding ownership, timeline, and cost. Ownership identifies the group or groups that would either lead or be most involved in implementation of the item. The timeline generally refers to how long it may take to accomplish or make significant progress in accomplishing the item. The cost is estimated by one (under $5,000), two ($5,000 - $25,000), or three (over $25,000) dollar signs. The cost estimates have not been analyzed and are very rough. Over the course of the few months of the CCR’s work, they also were used as a “think tank” by Mayor Piercy when the community was hit by another wave of hate activity. The CCR also talked with community members and the NAACP when concerns were expressed regarding the MLK keynote speaker. Many members of the CCR have indicated they would be willing to continue on an ad hoc basis to serve as a think tank and sounding board. They also would be available as a review body for progress on this Council goal action plan. The CCR’s work has been invaluable in helping the staff team understand community concerns and issues and in identifying a set of solutions that have been included in the revised action plan. They are hopeful that the work on the recommendations they made will help to sustain this important Council goal. They acknowledged much of the work the City is already engaged in and see the City as being in a position to model leadership in the area of race relationships and diversity to other organizations and the community as a whole.