DEI Task Force Response to City Staff Report
2-18-21
Dear Madam Mayor and City Council,
Eliminating systemic racism requires careful planning, clear objectives, tools, data, metrics and accountability
We must see and discuss the problem honestly and unflinchingly in order to overcome it.
Those most adversely affected by racial inequity in our community must be actively involved in creating solutions.
We are writing on behalf of the (former) Mill Valley Task Force on Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI Task Force) in response to the February 18, 2021 Staff Report addressing our Report & Recommendations.
Let us to begin by reintroducing ourselves. We are 21 community members, about half of us Black, and all but three of us women. In October of last year, we accepted the City’s invitation to research and develop community recommendations to advance the City’s “long term” commitment to “eliminat[e] racial disparities both inside government and in the community.” Mill Valley City Council Resolution No. 20-37 (July 6, 2020). This was and is a bold and challenging mission, but not an impossible one.
The Task Force approached the work with seriousness and rigor. By far the heaviest burden has fallen on Black Task Force members who courageously joined the effort with the slimmest of hope and have laid bare open wounds and shared stories of daily othering, denigration and exclusion in our community. In eight short weeks we produced and presented the 97-page Report & Recommendation here under review. The centerpiece of this work is our two foundational recommendations: (1) racial equity planning with a qualified DEI expert; and (2) a DEI Commission with BIPOC representation that can provide dedicated ongoing leadership within City government.
We are profoundly disappointed to see the Staff Report wholly reject the widely-accepted concept and framework for systemic change upon which these recommendations are based. The Staff Report exaggerates the City’s DEI actions and takes credit for third party DEI initiatives in order to falsely suggest that the City already has a Racial Equity Plan that is well on its way to completion. This letter will focus, first, on why our two foundational recommendations are so important, and why Staff’s analysis is so flawed. Part I, below
We will reserve discussion of Staff’s treatment in its “Work Plan” of the Task Force’s other recommendations for a later time. It is worth noting, however, that the Work Plan manages to dismiss or delay indefinitely the great majority of those recommendations, a point that would be easy to miss in the indirect and non-specific language of the Staff Report.
The Staff Report invites a discussion of the role of the Task Force. We welcome this opportunity to clarify that the Task Force has never advised or endorsed the City’s approach to DEI, and to highlight the City’s paradoxical approach to the Task Force: on the one hand proclaiming the City’s reliance on the Task Force’s valuable ongoing contribution; on the other hand, ignoring, disrespecting and even threatening Task Force members to restrict our continued advocacy. Part II, below.
We urge Council members to embrace a better vision for the City: initiate real, expert-facilitated racial equity planning, and commit to building an effective DEI leadership structure within City government with BIPOC representation to meaningfully advance this effort.
I.
THE STAFF REPORT APPROACH DEFIES BEST PRACTICES
FOR PROMOTING RACIAL EQUITY IN GOVERNMENT
What is Missing from the Staff Report’s Approach to Racial Equity Planning?
Planning and Staffing—The Staff Report takes the position that a “staff-driven” process has managed, and will continue to manage, the City’s racial equity work more efficiently and effectively without an expert-facilitated Racial Equity Plan or a DEI commission. Indeed, according to Staff, “the City has already met many of the benchmarks for a Racial Equity Plan since mid-2020.” Staff Report, p. 10. These assertions are misguided and wholly insupportable.
The Staff Report claims to be following the methodology of the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE) for its understanding of Racial Equity Planning. The Task Force supports the GARE model, which is entirely consistent with our two foundational recommendations. But the Staff Report reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature, purpose and elements of racial equity planning according to GARE. An established profession of experienced DEI experts including GARE agrees: overcoming institutional and systemic racism in government requires a fundamental restructuring that centers equity in all City actions and decision-making. See e.g., GARE, Resource Guide for Advancing Racial Equity & Transforming Government; Ready Set Consulting, Solutions Package (“Our initiatives are strategic, integrated, and embedded across all parts of an organization.”); Interactions Institute for Social Change. We invite the City Council to review for itself the GARE documents that staff relies on to see how profoundly they differ from what the Staff Report has presented. GARE, Racial Equity Action Plans.
A chief failure of the Staff Report analysis is that it confuses the Task Force work on our Report & Recommendations with the necessary government planning efforts, which have yet to begin. In purporting to demonstrate the City’s satisfaction of the GARE benchmarks, the Staff Report points to the work of the Task Force as a stand-in for the prescribed government Research and Organizational Assessment, Research Findings, and indeed for the Racial Equity Plan itself. While community engagement and input (as reflected in the work of the Task Force) are valued elements in the preparation phase for the GARE methodology, they are no substitute for the internal government work that lies at the heart of GARE’s approach to achieving systemic change. The purpose of that work is for the City to develop and embed racial equity values, structures, tools, data collection, metrics and accountability into every City Department, action and decision. See note 5, supra.
In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the City’s purportedly existing “Plan,” the Staff Report and the City website not only broadly promote the Task Force and its relationship to the City, but also claim ownership of numerous initiatives and events that are not of the City’s making (e.g., Digital Marin, 30 Days of Service, TUHSD public forums on racism, Mill Valley Call to Action, Perspectives Art Project, news and resources regarding BIPOC voting and participation in government, etc.). Even the DEI efforts initiated within City entities are often the product of individual initiative rather than of any coordinated planning or leadership within City government. (E.g., Library reading groups and children’s book lists with a DEI theme; and the DEI focus of the Emergency Preparedness Commission, discussed under “Training” below).
All of these initiatives are positive, and we are happy to see them on the City website, regardless of their source. But when they are presented, as they are in the Staff Report, as proof that the City already has an effective, coordinated racial equity plan, this is utterly disingenuous. The City cannot rely on the ad hoc efforts of third parties and individuals who come and go to effect coordinated and consistent racial equity strategies, tools and practices on the scope and scale necessary to bring about lasting systemic change.
The Staff Report proposal to divvy up a fragmented “to do list” of DEI tasks and projects to “City Departments … [and] the 50 volunteer community members serving on the City’s current Boards, Commissions, and Committees” (Staff Report, p. 9) is a recipe for precisely such ad hoc gestures that, however welcome in the short term, will not achieve lasting results. The proposal is perhaps understandable coming from City Staff who typically operate in the siloed framework of government departments. But it is the opposite of the coordinated planning and leadership called for by GARE and other DEI professionals as essential to effect an institutional transformation.
Expertise—The Staff Report argues that the collective skills of City staff in policy, management and administration are more than adequate to any and all DEI work the City might undertake (Staff Report, p.13) and that “[h]iring a [DEI expert] facilitator would limit the City from leveraging internal expertise to advance racial equity.” These claims are wholly insupportable.
There is a reason that DEI work is an established profession. Overcoming systemic racism and implicit bias is not an easy or obvious endeavor. The field encompasses sociological, psychological, historical and political principles, methods, data and theory. These have been honed into tested strategies and methodologies that work. But it will never be as simple as instructing well-intentioned staff to promote racial equity in their departments. We on the Task Force are proud of the work we accomplished and, like City staff, our membership reflects a great deal of knowledge, experience, professional training and expertise. But also like City staff, none of the Task Force members is a DEI professional with the necessary expertise to lead the development of a government Racial Equity Plan—even had we been provided the time and resources to do so.
Staff’s suggestion that hiring a DEI expert will somehow undermine the City’s racial equity efforts flies in the face of reason and experience. The City routinely relies on expert guidance, precisely because it enables staff to carry out its work in a more effective and efficient manner.
The Staff Report repeatedly mentions the “DEI Facilitator” hired by the City to assist the creation and operation of the Task Force. To be clear, that consultant was not a DEI expert, nor did she operate as one during the course of her employment with the City. Ms. Patton is a self-described “Human Capital Strategist and Executive Coach” who appears to have worked exclusively in the corporate sector assisting individuals and small-groups to develop personal, interpersonal and leadership skills. https://www.linkedin.com/in/patriciapatton/ Ms. Patton’s considerable skills and experience do not extend to advancing racial equity in government or in community life, and she provided no substantive input to the City or to the Task Force regarding DEI strategies, policies, practices, tools or mechanisms.
DEI Training—The City appears to have taken a similarly fragmented approach to DEI training for Staff. The Staff Report claims that Staff, Council, Board and Commission members have participated in a total of 100 hours of “DEI-related training.” Staff Report, p. 11. . We are only aware of 5 staff members having participated in GARE training, and the Staff Report does not detail the date(s), nature, objective(s) or recipients of the reported training. While any such training is likely better than none, the City appears to have no established policy, purpose, objective, standard or requirement for racial equity training. We note, moreover, that some City Commissioners have felt compelled to develop DEI initiatives and seek appropriate training on their own outside City government.
During the summer of Black Lives Matter protests, leaders of the Emergency Preparedness Commission decided on their own to review the Commission’s ongoing initiatives with a focus on racial equity. This led to the Commission’s decision to begin providing bilingual materials on emergency preparedness and to expand its outreach beyond homeowners to include renters, workers and temporary residents. In addition, the Chair and Vice Chair took it upon themselves—through their personal connections outside of City government—to enroll in Leadership for Equity & Opportunity training through Impact Launch with funding from the Marin Community Foundation. The EPC leaders aim to apply what they learn in the three-month training program to improve their understanding of, and ability to integrate, racial equity into all EPC actions and decisions. The City has touted these efforts on its website as evidence of its commitment to DEI work. But the fact that individuals in government are having to obtain and develop their own DEI training and practices without City assistance speaks instead to the City’s lack of planning and coordination.
Efficiency and Economy--Staff’s effort to dispense with our two foundational recommendations on the grounds that they would be unduly time consuming or costly is also insupportable. The Staff Report suggests that, if the City pursues either or both of the Task Force’s two foundational recommendations, this will necessarily require putting all DEI initiatives “on hold” for an extended period. Staff offers no rational explanation as to why the City could not proceed with discrete DEI projects and initiatives while also pursuing these foundational recommendations. Further, logic dictates that, as soon as a DEI Commission and/or expert is brought on board, the City’s DEI work will accelerate due to the increase in human resources and, in the case of the expert, the ability to identify, target and employ appropriate DEI strategies, policies, practices, tools and mechanisms with which Staff has no experience.
Staff’s argument with regard to cost savings appears to be equally spurious. The Staff Report seems to suggest that, having spent $195,000 on DEI (Staff Report Table 2), adding a DEI Commission or expert could not possibly be cost effective. But the Staff Report makes no effort to calculate what the cost (or cost savings) to the City might be of either recommendation.
The Staff Report acknowledges that a Commission can “serve as a volunteer workforce, shouldering aspects of the City’s workload and lessening the burden of strained resources” (Staff Report, p. 9), but notes that these savings take time to be realized as the Commission gets up and running. Since the City has committed to this work “for the long term” it stands to reason that there will be plenty of time to reap the savings from a volunteer Commission and that the sooner a Commission is established the more savings are likely to accrue.
Concerning a facilitated Racial Equity Plan, our preliminary research suggests that this might cost the City as little as $35,000. Just as employing a DEI expert will expedite the City’s DEI efforts, it is also likely to result in cost savings over time: a DEI expert can hit the ground running while Staff must “reinvent the wheel” designing and implementing tools and mechanisms with which they have no experience. The fact that the lion’s share of the City’s DEI expenses is for staff services ($140,000 according to the Staff Report) would seem to bear out this conclusion.
We note that this is not the first time the City has begun to take on equity and anti-discrimination issues. Just four years ago, apparently in reaction to anti-Semitic and racist incidents, the City began the process of empaneling a Task Force, but the effort was ultimately abandoned. These issues will not go away and will continue to demand more City resources until the City commits to a meaningful systemic approach under appropriate expert guidance.
What Practical Difference Would the Two Task Force Recommendations Make?
The most important question, of course, is whether adopting the two Task Force recommendations would substantially improve racial justice outcomes, beyond what might be achieved through the City’s “to do list” approach. We need not speculate but can look to examples of how the City’s approach has operated in the seven months since the Council directed the City Manager to work with all City Departments to review “current, and potentially new, programs and policies and analyze how these programs and policies can enhance inclusion and address inherent inequities.” Resolution No. 20-37 (July 5, 2020) Section 5. The Arts Commission and its approval of “DEI Art” projects is one of the City’s most frequently touted DEI initiatives and provides a good illustration.
The Arts Commission was among the first government bodies to receive a directive from City staff “to address racial injustice and inequities in Mill Valley.” Arts Commission Minutes (June 30, 2020). On June 30, the Commission met and discussed six potential projects related to racial equity that community members had suggested including, among other things, a Black Lives Matter street mural and a variety of interactive art installations. See McGrew, Staff Report (June 15, 2020). With no other guidance to rely on, the Commission has approached the directive in the manner in which it was communicated: as an add-on responsibility outside the normal course of its work, rather than an opportunity to consider and reflect racial equity in all of its decision making.
The Commissioners have also displayed considerable uncertainty over the purpose and goals of the directive but have received little guidance or clarification from staff. Commissioners repeatedly expressed concern over a potential “backlash” to projects that might reflect “events related to equity and social justice.” As to a Black Lives Matter street mural, one commissioner offered that any mural “should represent the community it is in and Mill Valley is 87% Caucasian, so how do we achieve that?” Arts Commission Minutes (June 30, 2020).
In the end, the Commission went forward with two “DEI Art” projects: (1) “Perspectives” (an interactive installation proposed by artist and Task Force member, Zoe Fry, that invited community members to share their experiences and ideas related to racial equity); and (2) the placement of Black Lives Matter artwork on a Camino Alto utility box that City leadership had apparently endorsed. The remaining proposals were shelved or rejected.
The Arts Commission met six more times before the end of the year and continued to treat the utility box and Perspectives projects as discrete “DEI Art” projects that were listed on the agenda as such, separate and apart from what the Commission clearly deemed its core responsibilities. All other projects and events appeared on the Commission’s agenda as “General Public Art Projects” or by the name or nature of the project or event. For example: Click Off Photography Contest; Virtual Art Walk; Comedy; Call for Musicians; Rotating Public Art Pilot Project; Knitting; Wire Sculpture Project, etc.
No one on the Commission, including the City staff liaison, ever raised or discussed the potential racial equity implications or opportunities presented by the City’s numerous “general” art projects. See Arts Commission Minutes (July 14, August 11, September 8, October 13, November 10, and December 8, 2020).
Even when members of the public appeared at successive Arts Commission meetings to request BIPOC representation or a BIPOC theme for a project under consideration, Commissioners did not discuss or reflect on the City’s racial equity directive but instead responded, “the Arts Commission’s responsibility is to bring different types of art … to the community and not strictly socio-political views or beliefs.” Arts Commission Minutes (October 13, 2020; see also November 10, 2020).
All this is not to denigrate the Arts Commission or its two welcome gestures toward racial awareness (and, we should add, the Commission has recently added a third proposal for a possible gallery space at the Fitness Center Lobby for “DEI focused” works.) We merely mean to illustrate that by presenting the notion of racial equity to its Commission as a fragmented “to do list” of projects, the City got just what it asked for: token measures, rather that the institution of a holistic approach that might bring about lasting systemic change.
How different our cultural landscape could be if—instead of a few “special” DEI projects—the Arts Commission were empowered to approach every project and event as an opportunity to equitably attract, reflect, support and celebrate the full diversity of our community. This is the approach that DEI experts recommend, and that the Task Force is calling for.
II.
THE STAFF REPORT REFLECTS THE CITY WORKIG GROUP’S EFFORTS
TO PRESENT THE TASK FORCE AS BIPOC WINDOW DRESSING
WHILE IGNORING AND ATTEMPTING TO SILENCE OUR VOICES
The Staff Report proposes to “dissolve” the Task Force to free us “from the constraints of the Brown Act” so that we may publicly advocate for racial justice and “continue to provide valuable feedback to the City.” Staff Report, p. 6. To be clear, the Task Force has never sought or required the City’s permission to publicly advocate for racial justice. Staff’s proposal, based on a tortured and insupportable reading of the Brown Act, is apparently aimed at covering up a disturbing episode in which the City’s DEI Working Group sought to silence the Task Force through foundationless threats of legal liability.
We understand the impulse that some City leaders might have to try to diminish the taint of racial segregation and inequities that soil our City’s reputation. But we cannot begin to address these issues if we refuse to see—or worse, seek to obscure—their causes and effects.
From the beginning, City leaders and City communications have continually pointed to the Task Force and our work as evidence of the City’s commitment to racial equity. Time and again up to the present, City representatives have publicly claimed that the City and its DEI Working Group “continue to engage Task Force members to better understand the goals and desired outcomes of the recommendations.” The Staff Report similarly recommends the Task Force “continue to provide valued feedback as the City continues the process.” Staff Report, p. 6. Unfortunately, the collaborative relationship reflected in these comments is entirely inconsistent with our experience.
When we delivered and presented our Report & Recommendations on December 7, the Task Force received no substantive questions from the City Council. While some in the City leadership have proposed that individual Task Force members might contribute in the future to an understanding of specific items contained in our Report & Recommendations, the City has continually declined to discuss our principal findings and themes and no City representative has yet consulted with the Task Force about the Report or any other DEI matter. Task Force members have written to Council and appeared at every Council meeting since December 7 to urge the Council to honor the work of the Task Force by agendizing and discussing our two foundational recommendations. This request has been echoed by hundreds of community members in emails and in public open time comments at City Council meetings, but the City has never responded, either in or out of meetings. Despite the absence of dialogue, the City’s overall public narrative continues to be that the Task Force is advising, and even endorsing, the City’s approach to DEI. This has never been the case.
Then, on January 12, an article appeared in the Marin IJ under the headline, “Mill Valley Equity Panel Claims Official Foot-Dragging.” That same day, the City’s DEI Working Group emailed the Task Force leadership asking for a meeting.
Seven of us attended the scheduled Zoom meeting on January 20 where we were met by the Working Group members (Mayor McEntee, Councilmember Ossa and City Manager Piombo), a few staff members, and a stranger who, we soon learned, was an attorney brought in by the Working Group to deliver a strong message. The Task Force Co-Chair began the meeting by expressing our appreciation for the meeting and our desire to have an honest and productive dialog. But it immediately became clear that the Working Group’s purpose in calling the meeting was not to discuss the substance of our Report & Recommendations or any other racial equity issues.
Instead, the Working Group had assembled the Task Force leadership to lecture us at length, in an alternately condescending and angry manner, about the civil and criminal liability we would face if the Task Force continued to meet or communicate as a group. We were warned that, unless and until we were formally released from service as a Task Force by the City Council, any future group communication would only be permitted at a public meeting arranged by the City in accordance with procedures prescribed by the Brown Act. They specifically warned that we were not permitted to discuss what occurred during this meeting with the rest of the Task Force members.
The prolonged reprimand was delivered under the Mayor’s watchful guidance by the City’s attorney and the City Manager and included a rapid-fire reading of statutory language from the Brown Act concerning possible penalties that the Task Force was facing. The strictures on our expression, we were advised, applied to email, social media, and all other modes of communication, including appearances at public open time at City Council meetings.
As we explained at the meeting and in a subsequent January 29 letter (to which we still have received no reply), the City’s effort to muzzle the Task Force through a strained reading of the Brown Act was legally insupportable for at least two reasons. First, as an ad hoc advisory group that included no representatives from City government, the Task Force was expressly exempt from the terms of the Brown Act, even during our service to the City. And second, the Task Force was formed for a limited time and purpose that ended with the presentation of our Report & Recommendations on December 7—six weeks before the Working Group decided to deliver its threatening remarks. Notably, the Task Force received no similar admonition during our active service to the City, from October 6 to December 7, during which we held only two public meetings.
CONCLUSION
We do not doubt that many in Mill Valley City government, including in leadership, sincerely desire a path toward racial equity. However, what we have seen and experienced in the City’s approach so far has not been conducive to that end.
The Staff Report, and the City’s initial efforts, place their trust in a business-as-usual approach that expects the very systems we are trying to transform to reform itself. Without the necessary planning, clear objectives, tools, data, metrics and accountability, these efforts are destined to fail.
Faced with an ugly stain on our beloved community, the impulse of some in City government is to put optics ahead of action to preserve the illusion of our universal exceptionalism. We must see and discuss the problem honestly and unflinchingly in order to overcome it.
When the Task Force has declined to support these approaches, we—the only BIPOC participants in the process—have been threatened, silenced and disrespected. Those most adversely affected by racial inequity in our community must be actively involved in creating solutions.
From where we stand, the City’s actions so far are not what a commitment to racial equity looks like.
It is not every day that one has the opportunity to do something extraordinary. For Mill Valley City Council members, February 18 could be that day. We implore every member of the City Council to use the power that rests in your hands to turn the tide in our City toward racial equity.
Commit, and undertake without further delay, to employ a qualified DEI expert to facilitate the City’s development of a real Racial Equity Plan. This one simple decision will mean the difference between a large, staff-driven effort that yields only token results, and a tested and effective approach that will pave the way for meaningful change.
Commit to build an effective DEI leadership structure within City government with BIPOC representation. In order to administer a meaningful Racial Equity Plan, the City will need an internal mechanism such as a permanent DEI Commission to oversee its implementation.
Respectfully Submitted,
The DEI Task Force
Amber Allen-Pierson
Sacha Bunge
Johanna Calabria
Nancy Carlston
Dart & Cherk
Esther Cherk (honorary)
Naima Dean
Tammy Edmonson
Eileen Fisher
Zoe Fry
Running Grass
Halicue Hanna
Gilda Harger
Hilary Heaven
Tammy Herndon
Denmo Ibrahim
Frank Leidman
Elspeth Mathau
Jasson Minadakis
Celimene Pastor