The city of Durango is taking steps to address community concerns about racial equity, and it is looking to its Community Relations Commission to play a leading role.
When Minneapolis police officers killed George Floyd in late May, protests erupted around the world, including Durango. In response, city councilors and staff members began assessing community concerns and citywide policies, and delegating more tasks to the commission. Members, each with backgrounds or careers in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) work, say they are now gearing up to fulfill those duties – taking on personal risk as they do so.
“It feels like the first taste of real work that I’ve seen from the city around (diversity, equity and inclusion),” said Tirzah Camacho, one of four commission members.
The volunteer commission, established in 2012, gathers input from community members about discrimination and social issues, among other concerns, and then reports to and advises City Council.
It is one of multiple city efforts to address racial equity, bias and inclusion concerns. Internally, the city’s Core team, primarily high-level administrators, is working toward a citywide mandate to commit to working on DEI issues. The city plans to increase training opportunities, said Amber Blake, interim city manager, during a City Council study session this week.
The city is also asking the commission to reach out to community members and help advise the city on its DEI efforts. In recent weeks, the city has asked the commission for assistance creating inclusive workplace policies, drafting equity statements with the Durango Police Department and reaching out to impacted communities about controversial topics such as the “Chief” sign.
CRC is also facilitating four listening sessions in 2020, a goal set in 2019. The next scheduled meetings are Tuesday and July 16, both from 5:30 to 7 p.m. via Zoom.
“Our city is embracing this change. I do truly believe that,” said Lexie Stetson-Lee, the commission’s chairperson. “The interim city manager, the police chief, other city staff members, those on the Core team, are truly doing work toward a more equitable community, and at a pace that we have not seen in the past.”
City councilors have asked the CRC to gather information so they can learn more about community members’ experiences, but the CRC has been doing that since 2013.
The CRC has conducted surveys during at least 20 events – such as Pride Fest, Taste of Durango and the Durango Farmers Market – to gauge individual experiences as they relate to equity and discrimination issues. The commission has also submitted six annual reports to City Council, according to the commission’s website.
“There’s frustration with the lack of progress,” Stetson-Lee said. “The differential treatment is strong, due in part to an underlying current of colorblind racism here – we have a complete denial of systemic racism by white folks.”
Indigenous populations have said they face discrimination when they enter downtown businesses; LGBTQ community members face mistreatment from tourists; and immigrants, undocumented or not, fear law enforcement, Stetson-Lee said.
“What we were hearing were trends that were not being tracked in any formal way,” Stetson-Lee said, in part because the police department did not have a formal system for tracking discrimination unless it was a hate crime.
For example, one person followed a Black community member out of the grocery store making handgun symbols at her, Camacho said. In past surveys, community members have described their own experiences with mistreatment in school systems and during interactions with police and businesses.
“This is one of the most racist places I’ve ever lived, and I’ve heard that from lots of people who have come here from other places,” Camacho said.
Some commission members said their jobs have been threatened by their work on the commission. Several have received other threats online.
“It’s scary to speak up and talk about a lot of these things. For people of color, there’s really a safety concern, including a physical safety concern,” Stetson-Lee said.
While the city increasingly relies on the commission, the four volunteers who make up the commission are jumping into action to address resource gaps and take on new tasks.
“It may well be that they are not adequately resourced, and they may not be the only commission in that position,” said Barbara Noseworthy, a Durango city councilor.
The commission has four of its five seats filled, after one person stepped down in April, Stetson-Lee said. Members are busy with jobs and personal lives, but they are taking on more advisory board duties, typically devoting one to two hours per week. Stetson-Lee did an interview with The Durango Herald for this story while picking up her daughter from school. She says she spends five hours each week on commission work.
Unlike most advisory councils, it has a $3,000 annual budget that it generally spends on trainings and events.
“I would absolutely hope that this attention will serve as a portal to more trainings, a greater budget, more interaction with community members and more listening,” Stetson-Lee said.
It is one of the few advisory boards without a City Council liaison. Noseworthy offered to fill the role during a CRC meeting Wednesday.
Camacho said no City Council members have attended a Community Relations Commission meeting since at least early 2019, when she began attending meetings.
“People will show you who they are in the world by where they show up,” Camacho said.
Seeing the city take serious action through its DEI committee, having a Core team member pledge to attend future CRC meetings and having a council liaison – “that’s real alignment of cause and thought,” Camacho said. “That feels really good.”
Stetson-Lee said the commission needs “more participation from white folks.” At the first listening session in January, 22 people of color met in the room at City Hall and only three white participants attended, she said.
Camacho said the CRC needs more ways to communicate with community members, like through approved social media accounts. Some people may face challenges accessing Zoom meetings, she said.
“We can always do more, clearly. Given the stories that I hear, the pain of people of color living in this town – it’s extraordinary,” Stetson-Lee said. “I don’t think it’s comfortable. It’s vulnerable; it’s hard. I still think that the best thing we could do is to lean into that, and I would like for our leaders to do that as well.”
Durango Mayor Dean Brookie said the city has already made major progress in the past decade. The first step should be to educate the public about city and police practices, “because there’s clearly a misunderstanding of what has already been enacted,” he said. But the city can do more, he said.
“What the city needs to do now is look at other ways to better serve the real issues, which are lack of education, availability of housing – all those things that create problems in our community,” Brookie said.
Council has not yet identified a specific goal as it relates to addressing diversity, equity and inclusion, but councilors said they would bring it up during discussions at an upcoming City Council retreat.
“If people are crying for education, and they don’t show up in places that are designed to educate, what does that tell me?” Camacho said.
smullane@durangoherald.com
