HRIEC Minutes 06-12-2019 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Human Rights, Inclusion and Engagement Commission Minutes June 12, 2019 Page 8 of 19 community know what their decision making ability is, whether it is the City already made a decision and the community is being informed or the City is talking to the community because the City wants the communities help in designing this. Commissioner Lee thought as the Best Practices Document is being finalized community members could be invited from the list the Commission is making and maybe present it to them and get the community members opinion on the document and get feedback that way and even base the document on the feedback. Commissioner Macomber thought some of this, especially the framework is more designed to make sure that the department that is thinking about reaching out to a community has done their homework upfront and have thought through the engagement. Chair Beltmann asked if the Commission could finish the debrief part of the meeting to move onto the next agenda item where this topic could be discussed further. Ms. Olson stated the topics that the Council asked the Commission to look at stemmed from one of the workplans back in 2017 that really kind of got put on hold in order to work on this engagement project. What the Council was looking for was not that this group does any work on these specific items but whether this Commission felt that those items are something the City should pursue. The Council was looking for a recommendation on those. Ms. Olson stated in an attempt to try to simply this so it does not get too in-depth was for each project to do the impact analysis of what is the purpose behind the project, what is the City hoping to achieve with it and who is the targeted audience and look through some of the levels of participation the City is hoping for and then make that recommendation to the Council. Commissioner Peterson stated she was on the Commission when the items were brought forward in 2017 and were brought forward by other Commissioners who felt passionate about the projects. She thought it was fine to do an analysis but her concern is if the Commission is not the ones actually doing it and it is staff directed, she would prefer the projects come to the Commission like the Fire Department did rather than the Commission telling the Council to do these projects. She indicated if there is no driving force behind it then the project will just get lost. Chair Beltmann thought there was a larger component of thinking through how the City can more effectively engage people and the different activities and events and she thought this fit as part of that conversation. She wondered if this was something the Commission circles back to in August when the project is further along, and this is kept as potential recommendations for activities just like the proclamations and essay contest. She thought there was a whole suite of potential activities and these items can be included in that evaluation.