We are at the beginning of our racial equity journey and are in the midst of developing Racial Equity legislation. After passing a resolution to implement a racial equity lens in government decision making. We received full buy in from our County Council and our current County Executive. As the council works on the forthcoming Racial Equity legislation the Executive Branch has already committed to creating a Racial Equity Dept. One of our big goals in the coming months is to engage our residents in conversations about race and racial equity. We launched “community conversations” so that constituents can give us input on how racial inequities affect them and what they believe the barriers to racial equity are in the county. They will be asked to report back the big themes from their conversations and that information will be used to help the County Council craft our Racial Equity legislation.
Because we are engaging in a top down approach to this work we know that community engagement at every level is essential to buy in from our citizens. Our goal at this phase of our work is to engage our residents in these conversations and processes so that our legislation reflects the needs of the County.