Pride Month
On June 1st, City Council issued a Pride Proclamation to honor and celebrate our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. We were honored to have Ginger Chien accept the proclamation on behalf of PFLAG and Eastside Pride PNW. Her words were powerful and conveyed such amazing personal insight. We encourage you to watch the meeting if you haven't already.
We apologize for the short notice, but on Monday, June 14th at 10am, we’ll be raising the Pride flag outside on the City Hall plaza for the first time. We aren't able to promote or host an "event" due to COVID restrictions, but this is significant and we hope community members can join the informal, yet special moment.
Monday is also American Flag day. The American Flag, WA State flag, and Pride flag can be all celebrated in our Bothell community - a diverse community where people support and respect each other, and have a desire to learn about someone who might be different than them. These are all things we heard so much about in a recent DEI survey! Our staff is excited about this day, and again is reminded that we serve and protect all in our community, under all of these flags, without hesitation or discrimination.
Juneteenth
With the help of the Snohomish County NAACP Chapter, City Council will issue a Juneteenth Proclamation in their meeting on Tuesday, June 15th. Staff also recently met with leaders from the UW Bothell Black Student Union and have asked them to help inform and develop future DEI policies. They have graciously agreed to accept the Juneteenth proclamation and tell the community a little more about their organization.
Other Updates
- We have finalized the DEI consultant contract with Chanin Kelly-Rae. She has started work with us and we hope to share news soon of a community advisory committee.
- We revamped our internal DiveIn team and advertised for new members (application window closes Jun 15th). Volunteers were sought via self-nomination, or, from coworker recommendations. The team will work with Chanin and do more external community engagement work. Original members are excited to start meeting community members.
- Bothell Police had a community conversation last week to discuss drone policy and there are still more opportunities for you to weigh in on that.
- Economic Development is moving forward with a Pop Up Retail market program that supports women and minority-owned businesses. Jeanie Ashe received so many volunteers for the advisory committee that not all could be on the committee! But, we connected with so many new community members who work in the DEI arena, so that was exciting! We'll remain engaged with them moving forward.
- Don't forget to send us names/contact into for demographic group leaders, non-profits, or community groups that should be involved in shaping DEI and human services policies.