TITLE
Recommendation to review a report on Racial Equity and Reconciliation Initiative and provide input and policy direction. (Citywide)
DISCUSSION
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a Black man in Minnesota was killed by four Minneapolis police officers. Mr. Floyd’s death was senseless and an appalling reminder that racial injustice continues in cities across the country and world. Communities joined together in protests of police violence and system racism, and these protests and public outcry in Long Beach led the City Council to unanimously adopt a Resolution acknowledging Racism as a Public Health Crisis and establishing a Framework for Reconciliation on June 23, 2020. This Resolution has four key components to ending systemic racism in response to community concerns and the framework seeks to foster trust-building and mobilize for action and includes:
1. Acknowledging the existence and long-standing impacts of systemic racism in Long Beach and the country;
2. Listening to accounts and experiences of racial injustice, inequity, or harm to community members, while concurrently compiling local and external data on racial disparities in the community;
3. Convening stakeholders to analyze feedback from the listening sessions and racial disparity data to recommend initiatives that shape policy, budgetary, charter, and programmatic reform; and,
4. Catalyzing action that includes immediate, short-term, medium-term, and long-term recommendations for the City Council's consideration in a Racial Reconciliation Report.
Since June 23, 2020, 13 listening sessions and 4 town hall meetings and have been completed with the community with City employees. The themes and topics raised by community participants have been varied, but center around the nexus between anti-Black racism and community health, housing and homelessness, and policing and public safety, as well as economic inclusion and budget reforms. From employees, we heard the need to address internal City pra...
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