Agenda - 05-18-2021; 7-a - Review of COVID-19 Long Term Recovery Plan

Browse Search

33 05-05-2021 Town Council Meeting Responses to Council Questions community leaders in the Lantinx, African American/Black, Mandarin-Chinese speaking, Burmese speaking and Karen speaking communities to develop initiatives that could help address the challenges shared by these leaders and community members. In terms of recommendations, Appendix E:Strategy Prioritization Results (p. 145) describes how initiatives and strategies were evaluated based on the following criteria: • The number of community recovery needs the initiative addresses; • The popularity of the initiative based on a survey of the community's preferences; • The ability of the initiative to address needs of communities of color, • The ability of the initiative to promote long-term resilience. The detailed prioritization spreadsheet supporting Appendix E was weighted so that input from communities of color matched the disproportionate impacts found in the Impact Assessment. In other words, what was said to be important by the groups most affected by Covid is proportionately reflected in which strategies and initiatives have priority within the plan. Additionally, under the Integration with the Government Alliance on Race and Equity section (also pp. 8-9), the plan specifically points to a list of initiatives that were raised by stakeholders and that most closely align with the "intent and focus of the GARE planning group"—as well as the county-wide racial equity plan that is scheduled for release later this year. These specific initiatives are listed below: • Developing a systematic approach to countywide community engagement,focusing on creating meaningful opportunities for engagement with communities of color so that their needs are better represented by units of local government. • Partnering with schools to establish mandatory bias and racial sensitivity training for educators to prevent further widening of the achievement gap by making schools welcoming to students of all races and ethnicities. • Promoting equitable capitalization of businesses owned by people of color to enable greater participation in the economy and to improve equitable access to financial resources. The consulting team informed us that, in some instances and at the consensus recommendation of certain working groups (e.g., Economic recovery), the wording of titles and headers within the plan are purposefully broad in order to be more inclusive of all groups. At the same time, stakeholders also agreed that it was important to include specific initiatives and actions (like those listed above) that reinforce the plan's emphasis on advancing racial equity in connection to other related county-wide activities (e.g. racial equity plan). Prepared by the Town of Chapel Hill 0510412021