Agenda 11-07-19 Item 6-c - Application Modifications for Volunteer Advisory Boards and Commissions

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3 Attachment 1 Excerpt from BOCC Draft Work Session Minutes from 10/3/19 The Board met to discuss: 1) reserving County Advisory Board and Commission seats to ensure racial and ethnic representation; and 2) the addition of an "Age" item on Advisory Boards and Commissions Volunteer Application Forms. Commissioner Dorosin said there might be legal issues for saving seats. John Roberts said that looks like a quota, but it is legal to target recruitment efforts to increase membership based on race; to have diversity on the boards. If the goal is to set aside one or two seats, I would not recommend this. But a goal of targeting recruitment efforts towards achieving diversity works. Commissioner Dorosin said what we can do in recruitment is to have a statement that says we want to have a diverse population, and ask a question such as how will your participation on this board affect this ethnicity or diversity of the county. This gets buy-in for being on the board. It's one of our social justice values and establishes expectations. They can tell us how their addition will help us to achieve diverse representation on the boards. Chair Rich said that the application form is 8 pages long. You're turning people off by completing a long application. There is also a problem with putting this type of information in the database. David Hunt said that some of it is disclaimers for certain boards, and instructs what they have to agree to serve on the board. We ask a lot of questions, and they're not consistent among all boards. Commissioner Dorosin said we should set up a subcommittee to review the entire process. Yes, it's important to apply, but we don't need to have experts. I would volunteer to be on a subcommittee. Most of our boards are full. I don't think there a problem. David Hunt said part of the hypothesis is that, the more complex the form, people may be discouraged to complete an application, and don't want to participate. Commissioner Price said the reason I raised this issue is not with filling out the application. The issue is increasing diversity, and we have been poor at doing this. The boards have asked to wait to get a certain type of person. For the planning board, we had an opportunity to add diversity, but the board was primarily white. The people who have applied aren't able to get on a board when they want to, because they might not be seen as having the right qualifications. Commissioner Rich said I don't believe this is true anymore. I remember trying to get a person of color on the board. Commissioner Price said I've dealt with that, but it hasn't worked. Chair Rich said in general, I believe our boards are trying. We get a certain group of people that are abused by serving on too many boards. We need to attract more people. Commissioner Price said I'm talking about what we do. We continue to put the same people on the board. We're failing on being intentional. Chair Rich said I don't think we're picking people because of being friends on the board. Chair Rich asked if we create subcommittee, would it be a long process? Commissioner Dorosin said that a 8 page form is discouraging people from applying. It's daunting. We need to be conscious of adding more requirements. We either need to jettison some of it, or do something else. My belief is to jettison it. If you're interested, you should be able to apply. Have some question to address diversity to the board. We need to have some questions, but many of the recommendations come from the boards. I think there needs to be training or outreach to attract them. Ask them why wasn't there diversity in your recommendations? We're not doing targeted outreach. There are more components than what our board decides. We want to be supportive of the boards. If they've vetted them, we lean on that. This is our goal; our value. How do we get a more diverse applicant pool? Often we don't get diverse pools. All we may know is their race, but it