Abstract for Assembly of Governments Meeting Discussion Items

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8 Who is involved in the planning process? A comprehensive list of local agencies, organizations, and non-profits that are members of the recovery support functions is included in Appendix F of the Long Term Recovery Plan.Additionally, this list continues to grow. Organizations interested in participating in the long-term recovery effort can email OCNC Interim Recovery@orangecountync.gov to reach a member of the Long Term Recovery Project Management Team who can connect interested parties with the appropriate Recovery Support Function. What was the public engagement process for this plan and how was diversity and racial equity incorporated into this strategy?Can you please provide the specific numbers and results from the various methods of outreach? An outline of the overall public engagement process can be found in Appendix B of the Recovery Plan. The public engagement strategy included virtual surveys,focus groups, workshops, town halls, and online public comment forms. For community surveys, paper forms were also developed and made available at community families for individuals whom internet access/computer literacy may be a challenge. Surveys and focus group meetings were translated into Spanish, Mandarin, Karen, and Burmese. We learned early on in the planning process,following the initial Community Values Survey, that our methods of outreach needed improvement. The Community Values Survey received 1,535 responses. However, the demographics of the survey responses were not an accurate or complete reflection of our community's diversity. Following this, significant efforts were made to increase both the quality and the depth in our outreach and collaboration with our communities of color. The Orange County Department of Human Rights and Relations was instrumental in helping to establish focus group meetings and town halls with Black, Chinese, Latinx, and refugee community leaders. Input from these meetings was used to revise the preliminary list of strategies and initiatives to better reflect and elevate input and concerns from communities of color. Additionally, the Long Term Recovery Group is working to connect and incorporate individual community leaders and other members of the community into the Recovery Support Function teams themselves to be able to provide feedback and elevate concerns from both the top-down as well as the bottom-up of the recovery structure. How are the strategies and initiatives prioritized to be manageable in execution? How is racial equity incorporated into this prioritization? Appendix C of the Recovery Plan shows the Community Priorities Matrix, in which every initiative is evaluated for how it relates back to and supports the key needs or priorities identified from community feedback received through the planning process.