Expanding Community Engagement: Engage Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), renters, low-income, new Americans, differently abled and other traditionally under-represented community members by encouragement, and support to participate in current and new opportunities in city government.
Best Practice of this action
Rating Guideline
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Provide diversity, equity, inclusion, and bias training for city staff, electeds, and volunteers; provide ADA and reasonable accommodation training for department heads and managers; develop an equity statement that addresses the city’s overarching goals; include an equity chapter in the Comprehensive Plan. |
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Participate in a process that promotes equity in local government, such as becoming a member of the Government Alliance of Race Equity (GARE); take multiple concrete steps to increase accessibility of local government operations and decision-making, such as by providing childcare for public meetings; hosting participation opportunities in multiple and accessible locations, formats, and/or languages; ensuring that city communications are available in languages spoken by community members; review and assess city regulations for their impacts on under-represented populations; address equity throughout the Comprehensive Plan. |
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A committee or commission with wide community representation exists and meets regularly to provide ongoing guidance to city government on expanding and improving the quality of community engagement, particularly among historically marginalized community members; regular reporting on progress made in ensuring equitable access to city government programs, planning, budgeting and decision-making; develop and adopt a community equity plan with ample opportunity for public engagement and participation; use the Equitable Development Scorecard or an equivalent tool to assess development or redevelopment proposals. |
Resources
- Utilize data and mapping such as the MPCA map of Areas of Concern for Environmental Justice and Met Council’s Place-Based Equity Research, which allows users to identify Census tracts where additional consideration or effort is warranted to evaluate the potential for disproportionate adverse impacts [1, 2, and 3 Star].
- See the Equity & Sustainability Toolkit for cities and an Equity in Action Database, a sortable spreadsheet with 5 tabs that display: 94 equity indicators; 101 equity actions; an annotated/hot-linked list of 27 frameworks & tools; an annotated/hot-linked list of 12 data web sites; links to 13 sample equity plans (Sustainable States Network, 2019) [1, 2, and 3 Star].
- See the Community Co-Design Toolkit and City of Rochester Case Studies (2021) for incorporating equitable engagement in two processes: Discovery walk co-design and the Sustainability and Resiliency Task Force [2 Star].
- The City of Bloomington’s Sustainability Commission used information provided by City staff to focus on specific areas in the city with lower household incomes and older buildings and add environmental justice strategies to their sustainability work plan [2 Star].
- See Creating a Welcoming Community: A Toolkit to Support Immigrants, Refugees, and BIPOC (RSDP, 2020). The toolkit is to provide ideas and information for small towns to meaningfully engage with immigrants, refugees, and BIPOC and share what communities can do to be more welcoming and inclusive [2 Star].
- GSC has compiled a list of environment/energy/climate educational resources that are available in languages other than english (spanish, hmong, somali, etc.) [2 Star].
- Your City’s Budget is a Racial & Economic Justice Opportunity (Partnership for Working Families, 2019) [2 Star].
- LMC helps cities work on race equity awareness-raising, planning and implementation through the Center for Social Inclusion's Governmental Alliance on Race Equity (GARE) [2 and 3 Star].
- The JUST program is a voluntary disclosure tool for social just and equitable communities and organizations (International Living Future Institute, 2021) [2 and 3 Star].
- See the Racial Equity Action Plans: a how-to manual (GARE, 2016) [3 Star].
- Review good practices for incorporating equity in a city sustainability plan, including metrics on progress in reduction of disparities, in “Equity in Sustainability, An Equity Scan of Local Government Sustainability Programs (USDN 2042) [3 Star].
- Why do a Cultural Equity Plan? As cities and regions seek to build on this vibrancy, build intercultural community, and redress historic underinvestment in communities of color, many are developing and implementing cultural plans by bringing an explicit racial and ethnic demographic lens to planning (Transportation Equity Caucus, 2021) [3 Star].
- The Equitable Development Principles & Scorecard helps communities ensure that the principles and practices of equitable development, environmental justice, and affordability are available to all residents (The Alliance, 2016). Use the scorecard during community visioning, for scoring a proposed development project, or when making policy change recommendations. [3 Star].
Order Number
7