(BLOOMINGTON) – As part of ongoing efforts to confront and mitigate structural racism and advance racial equity, Mayor John Hamilton and City Clerk Nicole Bolden have announced their commitment to providing and participating in anti-racism training.
The City leaders are inviting the other elected officials in the City of Bloomington and Monroe County to join in this training, together with City department heads, as a collaborative community undertaking.
The process of selecting an anti-racism training program will begin this week with the issuance of a Request for Qualifications (RFQ), to ensure a fair and competitive selection process. The RFQ will be posted to the City’s website and circulated on social media.
As will be further elaborated in the RFQ, the City will seek a thoughtful, challenging and engaging training program that will demonstrate how racism functions in governmental programs, policies, and procedures; will supply staff and elected officials with tools and strategies to address structural racism and advance racial equity; and can be completed before the end of 2020.
City Clerk Nicole Bolden said, “One of my favorite quotes from our former President Barack Obama is, ‘Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.’ By participating in this training, we are becoming the change agents.”
This initiative continues an increased commitment to training of City staff, reflected in the tripling of such investments since 2016, to 1.5% of payroll. It also expands on the implicit bias training provided to City leaders in August 2019. Participating in anti-racist training continues the City’s ongoing efforts, as recently announced in Mayor Hamilton’s Recover Forward initiative, to address structural racism and promote equity within City programs and policies.
