At the January 24 meeting of the Greenbelt City Council, City Human Resources Director Dawane Martinez briefed council on the city’s participation in Advancing Racial Equity in the DMV Region, a project that is part of the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE). GARE is a national network of governments working to achieve racial equity and advance opportunities for all. Currently, 370 governments at the city, county, regional and state level in 36 states are participating.
The program is organized into cohorts. The DMV (District, Maryland, Virginia) cohort is led by Chuck Bean of the Metropolitan Council of Governments and includes Prince George’s, Charles, Frederick and Montgomery counties and the cities of Greenbelt, College Park, Takoma Park and Gaithersburg, plus the District of Columbia, four Virginia counties and two Virginia cities.
The DMV cohort will focus on four main areas: public safety and court services; community development, planning, zoning and housing; transportation and mobility; and governing and business, procurement, human resources and leadership, and workforce development.
Through participating in this work, each jurisdiction will develop a racial equity training curriculum; a racial equity action plan to be used in policy, practice, program and budget decisions; sample policies and practices to advance racial equity and trained facilitators to implement staff training.
A GARE portal will allow participants to share resources, materials and jurisdiction work. Greenbelt’s GARE team consists of Martinez, Economic Development Coordinator Charise Liggins, Director of Planning and Community Development Terri Hruby, City Treasurer Bertha Gaymon, Police Chief Rick Bowers, Director Greg Varda and LaToya Fisher of the Recreation Department, CARES Director Liz Parks and Co-Acting Director of Public Works Brian Townsend. Four GARE members are assigned to the cohort: two as trainers, one project manager and one resource person. The cohort meets monthly through July of this year and GARE hosts an annual meeting in April.
Information about the program is on the city’s website at greenbeltmd.gov/government/city-administration/human-resources/government-alliance-and-racial-equity. Martinez said, however, that the team is focusing on internal communications to ensure they have a complete and cohesive plan before presenting it to residents.