Thanks to everybody for being here tonight.

And I will turn it over to Robbie to get us started.

Thank you, Mayor Pace.

Good evening, everyone.

This meeting is being recorded.

Tonight is a uh kind of a continuation of uh a previous work session we had a couple of months ago around our VEI V efforts.

Um you've all met Yunus before, but tonight we're gonna talk a lot more about uh you'll notice in our staff reports over the past year that we've made some changes to the staff report specifically in regards to community engagement and our equity lens.

So Yunus is going to take you all through that.

So I'll turn it over to her.

All right, good evening, everyone.

Good to see you all again.

I have a hello, hello.

I have a PowerPoint presentation.

Um, and once we get that going, I'll begin presenting.

Awesome.

So, as Robbie said, um, last time I was with you all, we did um an overview of the training that we typically do for all new staff members here at the city.

And one of the things that we talked a lot about and focused on was just a very general understanding of kind of the city's approach and beliefs as it pertains to DEIB work.

Um, as Robbie said, this is really focusing now on the how we do it.

That first presentation was really focused on like the what kind of our philosophy and things behind DEIB work.

And so the question is more so like now that we put all that stuff out here, what does it look like to actually make that happen?

And so that's where the staff report and those two questions we put in there are really important.

So a quote that my colleague and I always start every one of our sessions when we're talking about these two tools is with a quote.

Um, it's by Marshall McCluin, a Canadian media theorist, and it says, we shape our tools and thereafter our our tools shape us.

And so we just felt that's really fitting given um the nature of these tools and what we hope that it does for us as a city.

So today's purpose of the session is just to clarify the role of the equity toolkit usage and community engagement questions that are on the staff report.

Um, identify what counsel you all can take away from them, um, and then show all these question support transparency and staff recommendations.

Um, and so my hope is just generally speaking that you all would walk away kind of knowing what the expectation is for you all with those, um just even knowing there's been a lot of questions regarding like what is expected when folks present and present those questions to you all.

To kind of ground us, what I want to start with is you all have seen this before.

I'm sure you've become very familiar with it.

It's our the city's equity statement.

Um, here you'll see a couple things underlined.

Um, one of them is that equity is a pursuit of equal outcomes.

And then the last sentence to realize our mission and core values, the city of Hillsborough commits to integrating equity into the fabric of our organization and the delivery of public services in pursuit of equal, fair, and just outcomes for all.

Um, this was adopted in 2019 by our equity team that was around during that time.

And when we talk about this idea, and I said this to you all the last time we met, um, that sentence that equity is the pursuit.

Um, we emphasize that because we acknowledge um that these tools are a means of helping us pursue equity and equal outcomes for everyone in our community.

Um, but however, it doesn't guarantee fair outcomes for everyone.

Um, and I unpacked that a little bit more at our last session, but I'm not gonna do that here.

Um, hopefully you all remember what I said in regards to that.

Um, and this is our mission, vision, and values.

Um, over the last uh year or two, we've added, we developed these new mission, vision, and values.

Um, of course, worth pointing out is that equity is now one of our goal focused areas, and then one of our values is diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

And so, again, when we talk about these things, um, a lot of what happens and what I would say dating all the way back to 2020, we a lot of institutions and places really focused on like what's going wrong, um, the areas in which we need to grow and develop and what we need to learn and know about our community and what really raised the question in that learning for us is in, you know, it's a city was really like how do we now do this work more than the what's wrong, what needs to be better, how do we actually move towards making those things better?

And so this is where these tools come in.

Um, and this is kind of one aspect of the how of how we do it.

Um, and so we talked about this again last time.

The top left is a shorter version of the equity toolkit, which is the six-step process that's on the right.

And then we have our community engagement framework, which is a seven-step process that we utilize when we are going out to engage with our community.

Um, at the center and core of community engagement is relationship building.

And so we believe that this process is um the utmost way to best engage our community and make sure that we're not doing harm.

And then the equity lens and the aid tool are both utilized for anything that's not really involving community or needing their input.

And then trying to move towards again, trying to move our staff towards utilizing these tools as we are thinking about how do we do equity work, how do we engage with that line that talks about you know equity being the pursuit of equal outcomes.

So let's dive in.

Let's talk about the equity and community engagement tools usage.

So things to keep in mind.

As you know, there's two questions.

I probably should have put the picture of those two questions, but hopefully you know what they look like.

I'm sure you've looked at some that you'll be looking at today.

Um, but things to keep in mind that when it comes to these questions, uh, response, responses from our staff members will definitely differ depending on the work in which they're doing.

Um, and we recognize these two questions are really new.