The first meeting of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Commission was off to a positive start according to Nancy Goodloe, the council representative and chair for the commission. 

Recently the committee was able to elect six members for the commission. The six members include Landis Hansen, Tylene Carnell, Kandee Cleary, Daniel Amos, Veronica Acevedo and Sara Omrani. 

The two-step process of choosing these six members was initiated by the subcommittee. First, the subcommittee asked the applicants to answer four questions that were specific to the skills and abilities needed to be on the commission. After the responses were reviewed, a few applicants were selected to have an interview. After interviews, the subcommittee was able to make a recommendation to the city council. Those questions were asked in efforts to narrow down the 34 applicants to six members.

The DEI Commission reviewed ordinances establishing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, discussed staggered terms, amount of terms people can serve and reviewed duties of commission. The commission also discussed a comprehensive plan and what the group needs to establish in the DEI chapter. 

Goodloe said the biggest task they will get to council within the next six months is a community engagement plan that includes activities such as forums and community gathering events to help connect people in the community. 

“We are tasked with identifying all our partner groups and organizations that we will be working with to sponsor some events,” Goodloe said. 

The DEI commission is tasked with creating strategies to improve communication in the community and city council regarding the diversity, equity and inclusion committee. 

“We just need stronger communication,” Goodloe said, “and we need energy devoted to creating bilingual documents because we have a number of folks who live in the community who don’t speak English.” 

During the meeting they were also able to elect the Vice Chair, Tylene Carnell. She will manage the meeting when Goodloe is not available. 

“We had a really good meeting,” Goodloe said. “For the first time that all this group has been together we had great conversations, they were all engaged. Everybody is very excited and pumped about doing this work, so I thought we got off to a really positive start.” 

The DEI Commission has now committed to meeting twice a month on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month, to meet deadlines of the work they need to do.