Brookhaven will hold a third meeting to receive public input on its social justice commission’s recommendations.
The announcement was made during the second virtual meeting about the recommendations formed by the city’s Social Justice, Race, and Equity Commission on Thursday. The city formed the commission in September of 2020 to address issues of diversity and social justice in the city, and the commission presented 18 recommendations to the city during a Dec. 14, 2021 Brookhaven City Council meeting.
The third meeting will take place in person at the Latin American Association at 2750 Buford Highway on Feb. 17 at 6 p.m. The session will have someone available to do the presentation in Spanish as well as English.
“We pushed that out a little bit so we could do a better job of getting out deeper into the community, and get folks turned out at the LAA,” said City Manager Christian Sigman.
During the meeting, a few of the commissioners on the call also discussed some of the recommendations they found most important as well as some of the biggest hurdles they faced in coming up with the recommendations.
Commission Danita Knight said her biggest “aha moment” for all recommendations was the need for more data.
“It certainly is not indicative of any lack of transparency at this point,” Knight said. “But just the need, in terms of business owners, to have access and have information and have a clear understanding of how they move that forward so they can be successful in the city of Brookhaven.”
Sigman brought up the fact that the city does not track gender, race, or other demographics for job applicants.
“There’s no way to form any opinion, good bad or indifferent, on our hiring practices because we just don’t have the data,” he said.
Sigman also talked about where the city goes next with the recommendations. He said that city staff is currently working on an implementation plan, which is expected to be presented to the Brookhaven City Council in March.
“In March, they will get recommendations on the implementation plan,” Sigman said. “Those recommendations may or may not agree with everything that’s in the [SJREC] report, but they will mostly, in substance.”
The full meeting can be viewed on the city’s Facebook page.
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