Minutes 05-18-2021 Virtual Business meeting

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18 BACKGROUND: In 2020, the County and its municipal partners allocated a total of$175,000 in CARES Act funding to retain a consultant to support long term recovery planning and to draft a final report with detailed recommendations, implementation approaches, and performance indicators. The planning effort involved several community organizations and representatives (Attachment 2) to quantify and characterize the impact of the pandemic in their respective focus areas, generate ideas and recommendations, establish recovery priorities using a social justice and racial equity perspective, and review of the final draft documents. Public engagement efforts during the planning process sought to engage all community members and included deliberate measures to improve representation from communities of color. The County convened focus groups and translated engagement materials into four languages to increase representation from communities most severely impacted by the pandemic. Feedback from these groups was shared with local governments, elevated, and referenced throughout the planning process to help shape the strategies and initiatives in the plan. The guiding vision of the Plan is to leverage recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic to strengthen and transform Orange County by improving economic sustainability, providing resources, and achieving social and racial equity. The recommendations in the Plan are organized into seven Recovery Support Functions focused on the local economy, the health system, human services, housing, natural and cultural resources, community planning, and public information. The majority of the Plan provides detailed recommendations in each of those Recovery Support functions in terms of what needs to take place, who should be involved, when these activities would need to occur, and how progress will be measured. The plan appendices provide additional information to help enact the plan or explain its development and include: a summary of input from key stakeholders throughout the planning process; a map of how community input was integrated in the plan; and information about funding sources available to help implement the plan. Staff on the project management team are presenting the same information to Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Hillsborough. Feedback from each of the elected bodies will be coordinated and synthesized as the stakeholders enter the implementation phase of the project. A copy of supplemental questions submitted by the Chapel Hill Town Council is attached for additional information and context.