Climate Council meeting summary 102219 (draft)

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not attend during business hours, Bouma said he would create a poll for those two dates that include evening times. IV. Discussion of Climate Council Diversity – Weaver then led a discussion of the diversity of the Climate Council. She made it clear that her intent was not to disparage anyone who has volunteered their time to join the Climate Council, but there are long-standing forces that have limited the diversity in our group. She feels that the work of the Council needs to be grounded in benefitting underserved communities who will be most impacted by climate change. She added that one thing that would help us is to have a clear mission and values, so that equity is not an add-on after the fact. Slade agreed and added that representation is also important. Diversity was a component of the way Carrboro tried to make their At-Large position decision. McCullough offered that a lack of diversity is a long-standing problem in the environmental protection field. She said the Council needs to make strides on diversity while not limiting someone’s credentials to only their minority status. Kaufman said that people of color are better represented in the environmental justice field, and recommended reaching out to the Rogers Eubanks Neighborhood Alliance and other such groups. Richards said that she had already reached out to Rev. Campbell from RENA when she saw this on the agenda, to see if he could recommend someone if the Council decided to open up the a space for them to participate. Richards also pointed out that the time of the meeting is problematic for their student representative who is a person of color. Rubinoff said that we should work to diversify, and we should keep diversity in our mission and process we use to make each decision. The Council’s processes might be excluding the people we aim to benefit, and this goes beyond who is represented on the Council. Hansley-Mace said that there seems to be a good amount of agreement on this being part of our mission, and thought it might be good to lay out our mission. She offered to be on a committee to draft a mission statement if others would like to join. Marcoplos gave the history of how the initial list of organizations and positions was created for the Climate Council. Racial and age diversity were both considered and spaces were created for both racial minorities and students. It seems the Council was relatively successful in bringing in youth. Marcoplos and Weaver have both been talking to the Northern Orange Chapter of the NAACP to continue to encourage them to fill their reserved positions. Weaver offered to join Hansley-Mace on the mission and visioning committee. Gu reinforced the importance of income diversity as well since poor communities might be most impacted by climate change and have fewest alternatives. She also highlighted that they might not have time to attend meetings. Another key group to Gu is small business, and this depends on good communication because they are also time-limited. In Gu’s opinion, they should be invited to be part of our team, perhaps through representatives from the Chambers of Commerce.