HALLOWELL — City councilors will further consider whether to form a subcommittee dedicated to addressing inclusion, diversity, equity, and access in Hallowell.
Councilor Diana Scully, chairperson of the IDEA task force, made a motion at Monday night’s Hallowell City Council meeting to create a subcommittee to continue that work. She later withdrew that motion after councilors determined further consideration was needed into a subcommittee’s scope and function.
The discussion comes after Hallowell’s IDEA (inclusion, diversity, equity and access) task force worked for half a year identifying how the city can improve in those four areas. They offered seven action steps to improve inclusion, diversity, equity and access. The 10-member group extensively discussed and researched these issues, and collected responses from a survey that received 101 responses.
Access was identified among the top priorities, with 28% of residents surveyed reporting difficulties accessing services in Hallowell.
While he supported the efforts of the IDEA task force and the work a subcommittee could accomplish, Councilor Michael Frett said more consideration was necessary.
“We are talking about creating a subcommittee, and yet we’ve had absolutely no council discussion about what this committee is supposed to be doing, what kind of marching orders we’re going to give it, whose going to be on it, or what it’s going to look like,” he said. “In effect, we are creating something without actually knowing what it is that we want it to do.”
Noting the task force’s report to fund a subcommittee, Frett said there has been no discussion about where that money would come from. He also said it is unclear which of the seven steps would be accepted as a priority, or if all of them would be equally taken as a priority.
“I think what we should do is take a look at what these seven priorities are and make a determination of, one, if they need to be pursued in a subcommittee or in fact if these are things that can be, or are being, dealt with in either other committees that exist, or entities that exist within the city,” Frett said.
Councilor Berkeley Almand-Hunter, a member of the IDEA task force, suggested that the subcommittee could focus on one or two goals over the course of six months or a year.
“As we saw in the IDEA task force, this is a big ask,” she said. “Just figuring out what to ask for took six months, so I think that reducing the scope could be good.”
Councilor Maureen AuCoin suggested holding off until each of the goals were explored further.
“It’s amazing that the task force identified these goals, but they might not be the goals that the subcommittee should be taking on,” she said. “There’s one on housing, and there should really be a separate committee for housing alone. That’s a huge issue, and so maybe we’re jumping the gun a little bit here and maybe we need to go through these goals and decide how these goals are tackled rather than just continuing on with the committee.”
Scully clarified that it was not her understanding that the subcommittee would be exclusively tackling all of the issues brought forth by the task force. She said the work would be infused with everything done in the city government.
“This group would not be the ones figuring out housing,” Scully said. “They would not be the ones providing training, but they would be working with others and pointing out to perhaps some of the other committees that do look into these things that some concerns have been identified.”
Councilor Peter Spiegel agreed with tasking the subcommittee with one or two specific priorities to pursue over the course of several months. He said the council could work over the next two or three weeks to determine their preferences and priorities, and then establish the committee, possibly at the next meeting in September.
“We do need to infuse these ideas into our government,” Spiegel said, “however it’s almost as if we have all the ingredients on how to bake a cake, but we don’t have a recipe.”
Almand-Hunter said that based on feedback from fellow task force members and local residents, addressing accessibility should be a top priority.
“Certain people in the community continue to point out that complying with ADA is the law,” she said. “It’s not just something that we should be doing, it’s something that we’re legally obligated to be doing. So I think having a committee focus on that first would be my recommendation.”
Mayor George Lapointe suggested that he and the council explore the subcommittee, along with the other six task force recommendations, and come back to the next meeting with comments and recommendations. He added that the council could hold a special meeting specifically to focus on the IDEA issues.
“When I was talking with councilor Scully earlier, one of the things she said is that she wanted the recommendations and the ideas behind the IDEA task force to continue,” said LaPointe. “I think that is everybody’s goal, and this will allow that to happen.”
The recommendations in the task force’s report include:
• establishing an IDEA subcommittee of the Council’s Personnel and Policy Committee;
• displaying welcoming flags along Water Street that represent diverse cultures, abilities, ages and identities;
• providing IDEA training for city officials and staff;
• improving access to programs, services and activities offered to the public;
• figuring out how to create more low-income, affordable and attainable housing;
• approving and implementing a grants programs to fund these initiatives; and
• create a Granite City Values Statement that could be both be prominently displayed in the city and also used as a guide for future council actions.
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