Who uh the folks that are here that are going to be here, uh I'll go ahead and on time uh call the July 6, 2026 finance committee to order.

Uh Councilman Bullock is coming back from a family vacation.

So he'll be here later this evening, but not for this meeting.

But um myself and Councilperson Streiebig, I think represent the forum.

We're going to move on.

Uh the first item uh up for business is the review and approval of the June 29th, 2026 finance committee meeting minutes.

Uh I will go ahead and move approval.

Second.

Uh there's a first and a second.

Any discussion?

It's passed because we're the two.

So if you uh your second got it got us there.

Uh and as we discussed the at the end of the last committee meeting, um we're gonna kind of try to keep it tight to a half hour because there's a a committee meeting after this uh some very important issues.

Uh but wanted to see how much we could accomplish in the half hour that we have and see whether we need to come back uh in the next week or two to finish out some of these budget priorities and talk about process.

Um so rather than me continuing to talk, uh I will go ahead and we have three left.

Uh so we'll see if we can get through them.

Uh I do not want to shortchange them, so if we need more time, we will schedule more time.

Uh the first one is the implementation of the racial equity plan.

And I believe that is um council person Hamilton Steiner.

Or yes, okay.

Um so it you I guess the floor is yours.

Thank you, Chair Baker.

Um so the city of Lakewood via resolution created the anti-racism task force to advise and work with administration to ensure the value of anti-racism is foundational and unambiguously expressed, and all city objectives involving safety, housing, education, culture, and community wellness.

Um it was in direct response to the George Floyd protest in 2020 and is intended to ensure that Lakewood lives up to its values of being an inclusive and welcoming community.

Um so to just talk through a little bit um uh so the desired outcome is for implementation of recommendations from the racial equity plan.

Um the racial equity plan will present an opportunity for public discussion of what an inclusive Lakewood looks like and how to achieve it.

Um while racial is in the name, it is not only about inclusivity for race.

It will involve inclusivity for race, gender, sexuality, sex, religious affiliation, belief association, disability, and other identities from historically marginalized groups and less or heard voices.

It is a recognition of the necessity to deconstruct institutional oppression that harms not just racial groups, but is harmful to all demographics and counterproductive to a democratic society.

Progress will be demonstrated by steps taken to address the recommendation of the racial equity plan.

So I did reach out to Director Barry to just get a status update on where things are and the um consultant is finishing up the racial equity plan and will um provide that to the anti-racism task force and the anti-race ARTF will review the plan and um either you know approve it, and then once they've approved that Director Barry uh plans to put together a communication and refer that to council.

Um and then I'm assuming the next step would be a referral, and we will um you know discuss that.

And my thought of of everything is that it would mirror um other plans that have been approved by this body um and we go from there.

Thank you.

Anything from the um council president or um councilperson Striebig, uh as I know you're kind of co-workers on this.

I'm I'm happy to join this effort to bring um more inclusion across our community, and I'm looking uh very much forward to seeing the the uh plans from the consultant and helping to implement those across um our city so that we can get more involvement and more participation from everyone in in town and not just some of those people that have the privilege of of paying attention um because they have additional time.

Thank you.

Council President Keppel.

Thanks.

And I'll just follow up.

This was um a few years ago, a couple budget priority processes in a row were um put in money for us to do this plan essentially because we had the anti-racism task force, and without um having you know a consultant and some guidance to figure out, you know, it's not really fair to just put on a group of volunteers like how should we solve you know hundreds of years of racism in our city.

So um and how we do this.

So um and how we do this, so it's uh there the anti-racism task force was charged with being unambiguously uh expressed in all of our city um services and policies and those sorts of things.

So without seeing what the racial equity plan is yet, I don't know quite what implementation looks like, but I think like before where it was important to put a few some dollars um towards this work, you know, I think it will be important to have some funds because unlike you know, we've done other we do um you know active transportation and we do uh climate action and all these other things without some uh some money and depending on you know what all the aspects of this are, we don't quite know what that will hit.

Some of it will be carried forth by staff, but there may be um additional consultant work or additional um uh outreach pieces or those sorts of things.

So not quite sure what the dollar amount should be though, without seeing the the plan finished and what's included.

Well, I think what might be helpful is it sounds like there is some funds that the three of you would like to see in the 2027 budget.

So perhaps if between now and the end of the month, we can come up with kind of what that number is based upon consultation with Director Barry and whomever else, and then that's what goes in kind of our report out as a priority.

Um I think maybe that would be a good process.

Um if that's okay with you all.

Yeah, I I think that's good.

Um I I will probably look into and dig into what we did um with the community health needs assessment.

Um because I know after that process there was an additional layer um where there was some community engagement work that I I am not sure was built into the initial scope of work.

I would have to um reach out to assistant director boss, and he may know more about that and maybe reach out and see how that process played out because I would I would see us mirroring that very similar um to the community how we did the community health needs assessment.

Great.

Anything from the administration?

I'll see Director Barry here, but um Okay.

Well, thank you.

Um the next one is the community circulator uh that I used to ride as a kid.

I I assume this is uh council personal Hamilton Center as well.