2022.01.11 CC Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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will help her be an effective member of the Equity Commission, if appointed. Ms. Spooner stated her experiences have been from her professional career. She explained she worked as a Director for Target on the project side. She indicated she has been fortunate to serve on a diversity action committee over the past year, which was made up of 20 senior leaders. She reported this group focused on advancing representation of team members and improving leaders when it comes to diversity issues. She noted she developed a community framework that helps all team members have a voice in safe spaces. She commented she was also working to bring a racism training to over 2000 team members at Target. She stated she has taken her entire design team through the training and was hoping to take all buyers and str ategists as well. She indicated she has done some pro-bono work for some BIPOC companies that will continue this spring. She reported on the personal side she has tried to educate herself on the inequities that exist in the community and has read about the district rezoning in Minneapolis. She stated the journey she has been on over the past two years was to create a baseline understanding of what exists, what her privilege is in order to become more comfortable leaning into difficult conversations. She believed diversity, equity and inclusion was not easy and was not a goal post. She hoped this committee would be able to create space for all voices to be heard and to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Councilmember Abdulle asked what are some specific goals Ms. Spooner hopes to accomplish by serving on New Brighton’s Equity Commission. Ms. Spooner responded she has three goals. Her first goal would be outreach and training. She wanted to learn how the City can we create more venues and forums for the BIPOC community to have voices. On the flip side, how do we create more training for the white community to learn about what exists within the community. She indicated she was speaking from race, but noted there was also gender equity issues that should be considered. She stated a second goal would be data and measurement. She wanted to see the City setting goals and then track itself against these goals. She reported this would allow the City to see meaningful change. She reported the third goal would be prioritization. She indicated this was a long journey and would not happen overnight. She wanted to see the City dig through the data, listening to the community and then prioritizing where to start. Councilmember Allen asked what opportunities and challenges are important for New Brighton to consider in addressing inclusion in New Brighton. Ms. Spooner stated almost 50% of the children in the community were BIPOC. She noted she has an 18 month old and she was thinking with this changing demographic, she wanted to learn what needed to be done at the schools. Also, this was a massive change in the demographics and the City needed to understand where the gaps were with language. Mayor Niedfeldt-Thomas explained topics addressed by the Equity Commission will be sensitive, emotional, and important. If she had concerns about a specific policy or issue being discussed, how would she address this. Ms. Spooner commented one of the worst thing you can do is to not speak up. She hoped in this forum she would be able to approach all conversations by thinking critically about how to speak respectfully. She indicated she also had to consider where she was taking a pause and how she was reflecting on her own bias. She explained she would also have to consider where she should not speak as a white women of privilege in order to create space for a BIPOC member. She stated she would have to make sure she was also listening. Mayor Niedfeldt-Thomas thanked Ms. Upton for coming in and appl ying for this position. She noted City Clerk Spangrud would be in touch with further information on how the Council was moving forward.