HomeMy WebLinkAboutSupplemental Materials - Ad Hoc Community Impact Committee - 04/26/2021 - End of Committee ReportCommunity Impact Ad Hoc
End of Committee Report
May 1, 2021
The Community Impact Ad Hoc Committee was established by Resolution 2020-060 on June 23, 2020
with an overall purpose of ensuring that the City is creating an environment that provides safety and
addresses equity for all residents. During the 9-month duration of meetings to address challenging
community topics, the Committee has accelerated the direction and the groundwork for long-term
organizational work in this space and ensured:
The off-cycle creation of an Equity Office with a new executive-level equity leader position.
Budget process improvements including furtherance of an Equity Lens and a more accessible
Budget in Brief document.
Additional efforts in communicating Police transparency and the increase in mental health
response.
The formation of the Committee was driven by national and local concerns and initiatives calling for
reallocation of budget dollars from traditional police services. Council was receiving hundreds of emails
requesting a review of police use-of-force policies and accountability as well as questioning the proper
role and responsibility of the police department compared with other response types. The Resolution
expressed Council’s desire to take intentional action to ensure and maintain equitable and inclusive
policing, community engagement, programming, and social health initiatives through services and
programs and called for the Committee to:
Develop recommendations for ways to enhance and achieve a safe and equitable community for
all through examining policy initiatives, police operations and other municipal programs and
services.
Provide recommendations to Council for the 2021 budget cycle in furtherance of these
objectives.
Review higher-level performance indicators for Police Services and other related programs and
services to improve the measurement of success in providing a safe and equitable community
for all.
The Committee convened monthly from July 2020 to April 2021. Early meetings highlighted a few key
considerations to the committee’s overall workplan:
This work cannot be impacted by a sub-Committee alone and will likely become the focus of the
Council as a whole in the future.
The timeframe for strategically impacting the budget was constrained.
There was a desire to keep the scope manageable and not take on every topic brought forward
(Land Acknowledgement, School Resource Officers, Street Naming, etc.).
Based on the topics and understandings, Committee presentations and discussions centered
around community engagement and police services.
While there were key wins driven by the committee, including creation of an Equity Office, identification
and recommendation for funding a Municipal Immigration Legal Fund, and elevated conversation
around equity, local policing efforts, and reimagining engagement the Committee did feel lacking in
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accomplishments and progress in this space. These challenges offer insights and learnings about the
importance of establishing clear scope of work with ad hoc committees to ensure success and resource
alignment in the future, as well as the continued need to build organizational capacity for systemic
equity work.
Below are highlights of Committee engagement and future organizational work supported by the
Committee.
A. Develop recommendations for ways to enhance and achieve a safe and equitable community for
all through examining policy initiatives, police operations and other municipal programs and
services.
Committee Engagement:
Agendas included presentations and discussions with consultants and staff regarding the
Criminal Justice and Civic Engagement topic areas of the Equity Indicator project. These
conversations helped to identify questions and highlight needed learnings, especially in Police
Services, to better understand what metrics to focus on, how to interpret what we measure, and
how targets and benchmarks should be determined.
Panel discussion with staff on community engagement goals and practices highlighted needs
and efforts to make feedback easy for residents and to be more holistic in our outreach.
Discussion also highlighted learnings and successful efforts of centering the engagement process
and outcomes in equity (Housing Strategic Plan.) The Committee reinforced the desire to make
outreach assessable and easy for residents while ensuring that feedback loops are in place.
Reviewed and provided feedback on the process of developing Principles of Community for the
organization.
Early presentation and discussion with Police Services staff on programs and operations
grounded future conversations on allocations, redeployment offers, and metrics and opened
dialogue into current practices, including use-of-force and proactive policing protocols.
Police discussion on local implementation of “8 Can’t Wait” and other initiatives (April).
Future Council/Organization Activity:
Determine how to best implement and utilize equity indicators to gauge progress.
Develop and consider budget offers that address this bullet.
Partner with other agencies for joint learning and systems impact.
Enhance engagement opportunities and ensure residents can provide feedback in a variety of
ways and are part of developing strategies/solutions.
B. Provide recommendations to Council for the 2021 budget cycle in furtherance of these objectives.
Committee Engagement:
Discussion of 2021 redeployment offers addressed local efforts to consider best use of
budgeting dollars and willingness to shift dollars to “cause vs. symptom” efforts. Committee had
early opportunity to learn of police redeployment offers and housing manager and homeless
coordinator offers.
Presentation and discussion of equity efforts specific to the budgeting process helped guide new
equity lens on budget offers. Rapid Response team created budget offer equity lens which will
continue in 2021 process.
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Panel presentation with peer cities and discussion of Equity Office creation provided valuable
insights and considerations as Fort Collins looks to create Equity Office. Committee confirmed
desire for creation of office, recommend Sustainability model (sustainability practices now
embedded throughout City organization), and agreement that position and office need high level
support.
Presentation and discussion of budget communication improvements.
Presentation and discussion of budget and programming ideas that enhance safety and equity in
the community.
Future Council/Organization Activity:
Enhance budget related communication/education/information efforts with focus on equity,
enhanced stakeholder communications, and more user-friendly materials.
Creation of Equity Office and recruitment of executive-level Equity Officer.
C. Review higher-level performance indicators for Police Services and other related programs and
services to improve the measurement of success in providing a safe and equitable community for
all.
Committee Engagement:
Presentations and discussion of metrics with both equity project consultants and police services
staff started key conversations to help guide metrics and programming Fort Collins may want to
pursue going forward.
Presentation and discussion of internal Principles of Community effort was supported as an
effective program to build knowledge and standards within the organization that will have
positive impacts both internally and externally.
Future Council/organizational Activity:
Additional discussion and learning around use and meanings of metrics and Equity Indicators.
Police Services community engagement efforts.
The Community Impact Ad Hoc Committee helped set the stage for important equity work going
forward and showed local responsiveness to resident concerns. The focus on identifying and resourcing
the understanding and addressing of root cause issues that create inequities in resident experience and
perception of safety and belonging provide the groundwork to impact programming, services, and
metrics to track improvement.
Committee Recommendations:
Add Council priority statement (s) addressing safety and equity for all residents to guide policy
and resource decisions. Examples:
o Continue and enhance public engagement that is accessible, easy, and encourages
individual story-telling and community participation in developing solutions.
o Continue to better understand root causes of disparities in indicators, especially in
criminal justice and civic engagement, and develop solutions with most impacted
community members.
o Embed Equity Lens throughout the organization and into decision making.
o Prioritize mental health resources and response options.
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o Strengthen relationships with indigenous communities and explore priorities that could
include development of a Land Acknowledgement.
Equity training as part of Council onboarding. Include unconscious bias.
Ensure employees receive training and work to embed the purpose and goals of being an
equitable organization into all departments.
Conduct Ad Hoc after-action to outline learnings that impact the effectiveness of ad hoc
committees. Provide to Council.
Consider the continuation of a Council committee that could further both the efforts identified in
this report and Council related priorities around safety and equity and inclusion.
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