Residents from Lake County’s richly diverse communities watched on Tuesday, February 23, the Lake County Board of Supervisors unanimously proclaiming “Promoting Tolerance, Respect, Equity and Inclusion” among their utmost priorities. The video can be watched at the County of Lake CA YouTube channel.
This historic moment culminated significant community efforts, and was punctuated by each Supervisor reading a portion of the Proclamation, and affirming their commitment to host a Community Visioning Forum.
“These are the commitments that the board made – our board is committed to host a Community Visioning Forum to unearth priorities in the following categories: meaningful actions and activities that will build bridges where there may be walls; fostering tolerance, respect, understanding, equality and inclusion; promoting non-violence and non-violent conflict resolution; focusing resources on underlying causes and conditions that lead to inequitable resource and justice distribution; and developing relevant solutions for all social injustices, as they may come to light,” said District 4 Supervisor, Tina Scott.
“This proclamation that the Board of Supervisors adopted, I believe is one of the most important proclamations that we have ever given,” said Scott, adding that she had asked, when the board announced the proclamation on February 23, that each board member read a portion of the proclamation out loud. “I believe that was the first time this practice was ever done. I saw it as powerful that we were all standing together, giving this proclamation.”
Scott said the board hit another milestone this week when they adopted a proclamation designating the month of June, 2021, as LGBTQ Month. “We see inequalities based on income, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, race, class and religion. They persist across the world. We, here in Lake County, small, but mighty, need to address these issues where we live. This is the first step to find positive change. Together, we will reduce inequalities and transform our communities, so, one day, our children will no longer experience discrimination, but only read about them and in our history books. That’s what I want for my children and all the children here in the county,” she added.
Community members and governmental leaders that resonated with the Board’s proclamation volunteered to be a part of this effort by applying for a spot on the County’s new Community Visioning Forum Planning Committee, which met for the first time on Tuesday evening via Zoom.
“We don’t have a specific budget approved yet, because we aren’t far enough along in the process to know how much we should plan for. But we absolutely are expecting that we will need to budget some funds to do this. We hope that other government partners will join us in that. In particular, we anticipated that if we select a facilitator to support the community visioning forums, we would absolutely need to pay a fee for those services. There are some excellent resources out there. We’re planning on spending some money as soon as we figure out what we need to do,” said Carol Huchingson, one of the Community Visioning Forum Planning Committee (CVFPC) members, County Administrative Officer and a longtime employee of the County of Lake.
County officials said the committee carries as guiding principles working together to achieve the maximum community benefit through the forum by seeking first to listen and understand the diverse needs present in Lake County’s unique and precious individuals and communities, as represented by the members; to ensure each potential forum contributor is treated with equal dignity, worth and value, taking into account each individual’s personal autonomy; to model and encourage discussion to identify and mitigate any disparities in the County of Lake’s representation and service of the many population groups, including, but not limited, to persons of color, seniors, persons with limited access to resources and persons whose voices are less likely to be heard, among other goals and principles.
Any communications for consideration of the committee should include the name of the submitter, and any group(s) the submitter represents. Public input may be submitted at any time, by contacting Committee staffer Matthew Rothstein by e-mail: Matthew.Rothstein@lakecountyca.gov.
