EWEB Board of Commissioners — April 18, 2023

0:02 30. all right we are going to call the eweb board meeting to order a New York session 5 30 on April 18th and we are going to be talking about diversity equity and inclusion and happy lineman appreciation day yes yes it's going to say that is there any cake left over there was cake yes I don't know if there's anything left over it's it's doubtful I would uh I hope they ate it all and while we're saying thanks I just like to appreciate Kelly um she's put a lot of her own time into this format and presentation and this concept that we're going to go through here in a lot of our own time doing some of this work behind the scenes so I

0:48 really want to appreciate her real quick um we're here to talk about diversity Equity include in the course in the policy and I want to start with the purpose a little bit the um uh really the the main purpose at least for for Kelly and I tonight is to gather information so we did the the interviews with all of you and came back with a lot of take it's one of the takeaways was the interest in forward for staff to go ahead and write a negative I think they could then come back and and talk about policy language so to do that though we're trying to bring everybody

1:33 to a shared understanding of what goes into a policy and specifically Dei policy we're also going to lay out an option for a roadmap to see if that suits people for Timely efforts that they want to put into it tonight we're going to do a somewhat facilitated hybrid presentations format against defects on once was prior to have a little bit more dialogue back and forth will stop and ask a question and over

2:18 Carlson we'll kind of do this thing Robin I guess I don't know what you call it foreign just a quick uh agenda um Jack since part of the purpose tonight is to solicit information I just thought I'd throw out an opening question a lot of times I do like diversity I can provide a diversity question what's your favorite ice cream that one seems a little simple so uh try to stretch your mind a little bit here

3:08 just gonna throw it out what do you hope to see where you live in 10 years just to exercise your broker pipes and your brains to start clicking you want a cube here or what uh you can see you can sing out I won't ask I've never been shy relative to what the Dei or e-web uh what do I hope for equipment 10 years that we continue to be reliable and affordable we continue to be as we are today I think it's an excellent place to work I think it's an excellent organization and uh I think we'll see it go backwards

3:54 for any list of reasons thank you yes thank you um I think that people have often thought about a week we do a lot of really Innovative um and I hope that in 2033 we continue on that trajectory being a leader when um we're really just to advise you too um I'll kind of tag team on that I I would just say being a leader in the community in all different aspects that

4:42 you've got a good leader in a as a community I guess I'll say I uh continuing to meet our community's needs as those needs continue I'll jump in and say that I also hope that we are horrible and continuing to get more resilient as times change and we are dealing more with climate change and I hope that we have a strong trajectory on where we're at with our energy by that time I mean this is after the BPA contract so

5:28 people have really solid understanding of and and other new contracts that have been set up by then I also hope that we're reliable and Frank you'll be retired what do you think I hope the organization is in a position where it can be really intentional with the outcomes it wants to achieve um or sort of in the moment and positioning itself going forward and I hope we're the kind of organization that that it's not only about what we're doing but how we're doing it that matters um an organization is living up to its values in the pursuit of its Mission

6:14 which is going to change with the community another thing too I I'm hoping that we continue to perform and we do that in a way that we're proud of thank you I think these are all really good comments I think you'll see actually some of those things come back these conversation so so a lot of the things you mentioned are presentational too that I've used the ability so I think you'll see some of those come back in some of those conversations here I hope Liebert decommissioning has started

7:07 um just real quick I thought I would give you a look back so my perspective I've been here 28 years something like that 20 plus years one of the things we talk about with diversity Equity inclusion in this policy it's almost like Hey we're doing something new and different here I just wanted to do a check in and say you know there's things that we do as a company all along that area in principle there's the equity inclusion for the last 20 years or so we've been part of the PCC workings uh diversity team I was part of the initial team back in 2000 something three um you know we've been funding limited income programs holidays

7:53 celebrating backgrounds June teens Veterans Day recruiting just recently we did open whatever you do Cloud viewing would you have people in tribal Nations set up a river fire restoration work for instance the thing is we have a continuous Improvement culture which made that sounds so Dei but there's a lot of components that as you break down this Improvement methodologies to do those are just a few things um I did want to highlight two and this was in the background or to some extent but this board here has even been

8:39 involved with with a number of DDI things and even going back to starting the Strategic plan uh Frank talked about the values values that have people noticed that he was involved you think about the the people-centric values safety in the community both of those have have been Securities we've struggled with at times to interpret with those uh definitions but safety for instance has gone from physical safety psychological and won't be communities gone from Community General to community system

9:37 right well so that was the first part of uh tonight's presentation so if you thought back to our agenda there were four components the first was to kind of celebrate some of the work that has brought us here it's planted some seeds that we're hoping set the foundation for where we want to go next and I'd like to move into the second part of tonight's agenda which is talking about a draft road map for where do we go next and uh in the you know I love the movie Alice in Wonderland the Cheshire Cat it's one of my favorite characters he says if you don't know where you're going any road will take you there right so we have to have an uh intended purpose of where we're headed and so if we you know starting uh back last year in February of 2022 we kind of laid out this idea of

10:22 this Frame this um the components that will go into a policy and the first part of the roadmap that we'll get to here in a moment is that we want to get to a policy developed by the end of 2023 by December that's our goal part of the organizational goals that you all passed at the beginning of the year and um this is the the framework that we have laid out in the packet it talks about what kind of goes into each of these components the rational Envision why is it important for eweb to have a Dei policy what's our aspiration or a big commitment the purpose what's the objective primary use of the policy we have to understand what words we're using and what they mean so that we're all on the same page and we can have some shared language to understand what

11:08 we're talking about and then we have to understand what the scope is where are the areas of focus and what are the roles of everybody in their own swim Lanes right how do we understand who does what uh and then how do we make sure and this was a theme that came through loud and clear in the one-on-one interviews we had with each one of you this is not a one and done right we're not here to create a policy that's going to sit on the Shelf we want this to be a living document we want this to be continuous in its Improvement in evolution and evolvement and so how do we build the systems to create that transparency and Reporting so that was what we laid out a year ago these are the components we are building the work plan around the roadmap to figure out how we can get to content in each of

11:53 these areas and so tonight's purpose is to start with how we're going to get to content in a b and c and um uh then we'll go into the other components on how we're going to get to the rest of the policy and then beyond how do we implement the policy but our first question for discussion um is up here and you'll notice we've got a pause button on the screen so um the discussion question for you all the way in on at this moment is is this the right General policy framework are these the right categories is this what we should be working towards by the end of the year okay

12:39 John I hate to meet David Kelly but anyhow right it's a long story um I'm gonna struggle with this and it's not because I don't believe in it it's because I don't know my qualifications to participate in it you know I'm who I am and I'm not going to apologize for being a white male and living in this town for 70 some odd years so I don't know where we're going where the I don't really know why we're doing it other than everybody else is doing it so we're gonna do it because I want to know what we should be doing that we're not doing and why aren't we doing that if it hasn't if it's been identified that we should be doing something different in these categories why aren't we doing it why are we waiting for a year to adopt a policy you know the old saying just do it so I'm gonna have to be led rather than be a leader because

13:24 I am who I am and uh you know and I've lived here in this little cocoon my entire life so I haven't been exposed to a lot of that I have a lot of family members that are uh from different diverse groups but um so this is going to be a learning process for me you're going to drag me along if you perceive that I'm not trying to be cooperative that's not the reality I am I think I don't have to attend these meetings but I want to attend it I want to learn so you're going to have to take me to where we're going because I'm not you know I've signed up for utility work about human resources and so um go for it and and educate

14:11 I appreciate you saying that I think that this work is I'll say for myself is really hard also because I'm a white person and I don't want to offend anybody I want to make sure that policies that we are adopting and adapting are inclusive but I don't always know what that means since that's not my background so um I'm really grateful that we're going through this that's and I trust that uh the process will help us see what it is that we need um and also I just want to acknowledge that we might make some mistakes along the way like it's pretty hard to be like open and conversant especially because this is a public form and we don't want to offend anybody and there's just a lot of learning that has to happen

14:57 so I know the question about the proposed elements of policy but um because I just want to acknowledge that kind of a difficult process um I'm just expanding yeah I guess I would say that uh the general policy framework I I feel comfortable with as far as the mechanics of how we get there for me it's like a lot of things that that I do on this board I'm not a power Trader I'm not uh

15:42 uh you know water analyst technician and so I have to learn as I go along the way and buy a house guide as best I can and so that's that that's the lens that I'm going through it in I don't feel that I by any means I'm in a position to write a policy I think I yeah input on what I am exposed to as far as up as far as developing a policy but that's about as far as I don't I think that that you know we've got some we've got some consultants and experts that are coming in to help guide us through this and so that's where I see my role is and so I

16:27 think that that will fit into these five different uh categories and to the best I can I'll be of guidance but by no means am I fully qualified to write in policy sure um uh boy a bunch of thoughts um one I'll advocate for um opportunities to have some of these conversations in closed meetings I think it's hard it can be hard for us to get to the you know some of this in public meetings just because we're conscious of what we're saying and speaking with myself and I'll be supporting I'm trying not to step in it and so

17:12 um you know I would say if there's a way for us to do that I would um I agree with you that I think it's hard to know what we're not doing and and I guess I go I I go on the assumption that we we are doing everything that our power to the best of our ability to be cognizant of the differential services that we could provide to different people and the way we treat people internally I don't think anybody's intentionally trying to leave people out or look differently by the time I think that happens in any way and so from my perspective one of the things that I feel like we need is a you know is a third party to help us with this

17:58 not because we're not good at it but because just like writing an essay I might be a good writer but I suck at editing my own work right it's the same kind of thing like you have to have somebody who's not you giving you a different view of your own stuff so I'll continue to advocate for that in terms of the I'll miss the policy it didn't fit in here somewhere it does feel like some kind of clear goals objectives maybe that's too granular for what we're shooting with the policy but maybe that just falls under the directives or the purpose but you know to the extent that we can make it tangible and understandable so we can all agree about what that destination that Kelly just described is I think

18:44 that would be useful for all of us to be able to teleport getting there in terms of the proposed elements that are outlined a theory through Eve I I mean I I think you've boiled down the basics of what we need to cover and yeah we're going to all go through a journey to to get there and what that Journey looks like and what path we take we will develop together so along your lines of we don't know which road yet but um I do think that this is a good goal that it put these points along the way and um and they change our fed lines as we go as we all learn that's what we're all

19:30 here to do and we all bring a different perspective and that's all valuable and you know I wouldn't respect that too I mean wherever you point your Viewpoint where do you point your viewpoints they're all very different than mine and we're going to bring certain pieces but I recognize too that where there are gaps there and to the extent that this process helps us herself to choose or understands others better so that when we're developing policies that what comes out of this is that that aspect of continuous Improvement that we talk about and I think this you know we're thinking about 10 years from now we have done a lot of good great work at eweb we're a wonderful organization and

20:15 the I think a lot of the low-hanging fruit of the things that we've done have been picked and so this is the next phase of that continuous Improvement of we're gonna have to dig down and find more of that you know the work that we need to do to get better so I appreciate that we're going through this and I think these are the right elements thank you for digging in and boiling it down to these more simple points that are digestible yeah thanks um the framework is very consistent with other word policies that this board has worked on recently if you look back at some of the previous policies they had slightly different structures but if you take the last one that the board worked

21:01 on for example which was the climate change policy a lot of the policy at the beginning was why we're doing it it then had certain directives directing the organization to to do these certain things and be accountable in in these ways and then you know how is that implemented through the decision process and and I see this similarly I I've so I the the structure is is consistent I think it's uh includes the elements that we want to have in board policy and I'll say really part of the board's role is to provide oversight and direction as to how the utility needs to operate and so this is an opportunity to do that

21:47 relative to how Dei is incorporated into the work that we do similarly to something like a triple bottom line what you're saying is that in that case when you make major decisions we want you to take this approach or use these guide posts I think this is this is the same thing as we move the organization forward we want you to to guide the organization in this way or consider these elements as your you and other boards and and the future operators of the utility are taking that into account sometimes it'll identify a specific problem but other times it's really to ensure that the organization is is

22:34 giving due consideration to things like Dei in its decision making and its products and services and and it's compensation it's hiring practice that you know it's you go down the list of what those directives are going to be but this is consistent with that and I think the outcomes will will guide the utility um maybe even opposed to to commissioner Brown's comment which is to fix something it's really I I see it more more as a guidepost as to how we want the the organization to perform and how we want the organization to do that

23:19 just wanted to acknowledge that these conversations are really awkward and difficult and to your point um we all only have the perspective that we have right that's the the entire point and so we need to continue to learn that so I think that this is a great opportunity to to go on this process as a team to further expand our vision and move towards these components so with that um hearing that those are a good starting point and that if we need to change the framework later as we move along because this is a learning process we can always do that so with that then that feedback that's very helpful the timeline and the kind of process that we're proposing tonight is for the roadmap is that phase one

24:04 would start tonight it would include tonight and um the future then the next board work session we had previously scheduled that for June 20th that will need to be rescheduled so whenever that gets rescheduled um those two work sessions are included in this phase one and really the intent there is to at least get down on paper our initial thoughts about uh policy segments a b and c so the rationale the purpose and get some definitions to some terminology so we can have shared understanding then as we move into phase two um and as part of phase one we'll we'll talk about some of those components here in a moment as we move into phase two it's really about furthering the next two components which is what are the areas of focus that we want to bring

24:50 into this policy um and are there any particular goals or metrics that we want to set um and then that would get us to an initial draft policy that we can adopt by the end of the year knowing that as we do with all our policies as we learn more we can revise and update and improve on those versions moving forward um so then phase three would go into implementation work and we can start doing some of that work so that we can then Circle back and say What's missing where do we need to go from here so based on the one-on-ones we had kind of anticipated four meetings this year on these topics and that seemed to be The Sweet Spot between everybody's feedback in terms of the right level of

25:35 Engagement so I'm going to give you all a chance to reflect on this and give any feedback in just a moment but I'm going to go into a few more details about specifically what we hope to accomplish in phase one again April and June it'd be building that common language and the understanding of the why based on what we know today um and we have brought a consultant on board uh it's a firm it was recommended here from the board um this is a firm it's local it's Eugene called Hathaway Monroe it's a small firm that has extensive experience working with public boards uh focused on organizational development and strategy development um so the purpose of this initial

26:20 engagement they'd be here to help us just with phase one and they were very clear about the boundaries on where they can help us and where they feel like their limitations are so their their goal is to just really help frame and Define the approach and the scope of this work for a public organization like eweb they have provided kind of the one-on-one level of introductory training and we would hope to bring that and bring them in at the next work session to provide some of that training in an educational setting and then they also have experience with handing off this type of work to other Dei subject matter experts and other Consultants so they would help us with some of that research to identify where we would go next if additional Consulting support was of interest to move forward

27:06 so um that's healthy Way Monroe and what we'd hope to do at the next session what we would like to propose as a structure for the next work session that would still be part of phase one is that we would provide that like I mentioned the diversity Equity inclusion 101 training component with those consultants and that would really focus on understanding more of these terms understanding more what Dei looks like in leading organizations and help further the why why do organizations engage in this work so some of your questions um commissioner Brown um and then the deliverables that would be part of that meeting as well that staff would work on and bring to you to react to we would be able to present you

27:52 with some options for additional Dei subject matter expert Consultants that could lead us into phases to and Beyond and how they like to work with organizations of e-web size our industry potentially or public organizations that have boards like we do and then we would um build on the initial feedback we've gotten from tonight to bring to you an initial draft of the first part of the policy that would outline the vision the purpose and the definitions that we could start from so that by the time we're finished with phase one we would hopefully have that first part of that policy developed so our we'd like to pause and propose to you two questions one what are your learning objectives

28:37 for this kind of 101 training we would want to give the Consultants some specific guidance on things you might hope to learn more about um and Beyond what we we are already planning here it's is that the right information that you'd like or what other learning objectives would you like and then are there additional desired deliverables that we would come back to uh you all with at the next meeting and provide you more information with yeah I'll just add on real quick and soon to um arovski the training can take place and at the more of a closed session so we'll be free to have conversations and

29:22 interactions that started so that wouldn't be the during the work that we'll all jumped in um learning objectives I mean for me I would like to um kind of understand the breadth of the items out there that they would typically recommend that an organization look out for so when we talk about I think race is one that comes up you know obviously in this sort of

30:09 discussion but I think there are others that especially for people that I'm gonna say like 35 and older that maybe don't um experience this much because I've um what I've seen kind of coming out of the university is that it's very much a part of their culture and and you know ingrained in what they do to talk about their pronouns that was something when I did this training it was very helpful for me to understand more about that and um I think that that even though I went through that training it's great to have that refresher because it doesn't come up as much for me and I think you know for eweb as a perspective as we look to recruit

30:56 placements and our Workforce ages that kind of topic and around that range is going to be useful and valuable for people to understand what that looks like so that the next generation of people coming in who have been more ingrained in that and have a better understanding of that that we understand that too and we can you know bring that into our culture so for me definitely around the pronouns and just the breadth of what are the items that we need to look out for the the ways in which we may not be inclusive hiring policies that we unintentionally

31:43 exclude or don't um recruit in a diverse way I think those are I know that's kind of a rambling answer but that's where I'm at so definitely looking for experts to help kind of like there you go please okay go ahead okay um I was also going to add um well I've I've tried experience through my job on but things like generational poverty and how the culture it's different um and I think a lot about how we serve every every income everybody and so um maybe digging a

32:30 little bit deeper in there especially because one of the things that we do is I think we're proud of is providing assistance for people with limited income but we'll put an income experience generational poverty but there just is a component that I think would be interesting for us to learn about how people access information um so that I think that could be helpful I also think that um it's a really well functioning board and I'm really grateful to be part of it but I do think that part of the Dei work is as to kind of oversee policies for the whole organizations but I think that there's some kind of board level or perhaps that

33:15 we could look at I think about how you said politics of the climate policy or we said all these things that they're in place and um I would just want to make sure that whatever policies that we're adopting that if there's turnover on the board people we have people different backgrounds come on that make sure that feel big I think because I I think I understand what you're getting at so there's an appropriate function and people had experience in that corporate functions as far as applying the EI to the home of the way what's going on okay that I understand is part

34:03 of that answer that you're just giving that you want something that will live beyond just this group you want something that will be able to um you just took these values that you want to be inclusive and uh and Foster belonging Beyond just the people that are here in this room today I also wanted to say one last thing that my camera is not working so if people are watching this my camera is not on it's not working on my computer um for me something that I would like to learn especially from from the people who've done this before it's from the Consultants a lot of this is ethereal or I don't

34:49 know if that's the right word but kind of squishy I'll just say squishy what I would like to see would be tangible ways that a policy like this would be implemented I from other organizations that they've got how you know what I wrote down with it is I will listen right back in the day-to-day type of if they've done this with several different people for me if you can give real world examples of how the policy filters down into an organization that would help me learn more more so than just a bunch of

35:34 that type of thing that that's just kind of the way my mind works it's not the artistic side even though I have some artists excited in part of my work but it's more of a the scientific side told me sure sure I agree with everything that everybody said and to add on to that I need to be educated on definitions and glossaries because you know I just trying to figure out what white and Jason didn't model uh minority means I mean when you said on the climate policy that historically underserved and upper Rhythm okay who says that and who makes that determination underserved and want and

36:20 what I mean what's the criteria and so having a glossary or something so I can learn these terms and understand them better when we Implement policy because those terms are going to come up and I certainly don't want to chime in on something I don't at least think I understand because it's hard enough with utility industry it takes 10 years to figure out what they're talking about and so if you could help me with some of those definitions and and the Genesis of where they come from what's the basis for it that would really be helpful for me that's what I was going to suggest to you how to find and review terms that it seems like there's also probably because it's just been shared language so we can have the conversation together uh

37:06 and then I assume as well that the the conversation will help you and Consultants kind of understand where some of our Collective understanding is and isn't an identify opportunities for us to dean of more shared understanding and fill some of those gaps where they exist I would also say that I am totally game for doing you know if there are good online segments that we can do at home to increase our total ability to these are collective understanding I think that would be I personally be open to that and deliverables there but they all look great

37:56 ideas that's super helpful feedback we will bring that back to the consultant I really appreciate your willingness to think about reading things in advance or watching things if that's an opportunity so if you want to move on if you want to play a little bit I I guess this is the when I think about Dei we I think we all tend to lump it as into one issue and there's definite differences between the D the E and the I and the color of Y what they need information and um and how you know I I think it's really important for us to to understand the

38:42 sort of the tangible realized benefits that that organizations who are more mature in this are seeing and so that we have a benchmark or a guide post as to what's possible um and and what the gaps are and what the opportunities are for us so um I think a lot of that is is around benchmarking understanding definitions um as ultimately I do I do see this as a policy that guides how we do things and um it's sort of like asking a group to referee a game but that they don't know how to play and so we need to understand the game and in this case it means

39:29 understanding the value of it understanding how it's implemented how other organizations are doing it so that at the end of the day we can say yeah this policy seems right to us even though we know it's going to be continuous Improvement and opportunities to do that but we feel like we've gone down this road together enough to say yeah this this feels like a policy that will guide us and we'll be able to evaluate whether it's working or not there's one other kind of sort of nuance on the the training question um uh I think our original uh Vision was that the training would be for the board and Frank and maybe Kelly and I would be

40:15 there but the option would be also for ladies executive team to join too so I'm gonna have to have an answer for that right now setting that out there or or just the board does it and opened that as well so that is a sort of organizational detail to talk I have a gut reaction to that I would I think it's beneficial for the board to do that with the group around the table here and I think it's beneficial for the managers to do it separately an email and that because and I and I throw that out there because here said there's a different level of the people

41:00 in the room and I would like that group to be able to learn and have those experiences in a or they might feel a lower risk setting than having us in the room with them but I think it would be beneficial I mean personally I think it would be beneficial for both groups perfectly closer together too I feel like we're you know it's like a big issue or it's like awkward or whatever but it's also awkward because we're like across the room from each other so I just hope that when we do this that we're closer together

41:45 that's a beautiful Point I've backed up talk about that a little bit later but even the board's setting is something to consider in how you receive the public and how people might want to test their body so if you're struggling just think about somebody walking off the street and stuff so I think that's a that's a really great observation folks doing the training will will definitely want something comfortable so I guess I I follow a little bit different than you do as far as bringing in executive staff the reason being is that they're going to be the ones that are

42:30 going to need to implement it and if they're here and can get the feel of how the policy was developed and and what we as a board want the policy cut to be implemented it's easy to me that's easier than going to the legislative history right this is what the board came down with and now we're going to do a training for you to to teach you the board is is wanting to do together so for me again it goes to how will it be used and if the if the exact if the exact

43:16 team is in the room while it's being developed I think that they may have a better understanding of how to use it when I'm talking about that I was just talking about the training portion so that people understand um kind of the framework and the options on the table and can ask questions that maybe don't feel comfortable in the public setting but the policy absolutely has to be made in a public setting that's I guess I was confused about because he said now you were talking about bringing in the execs at that at what point was yeah I thought so just the training portion the education portion of it yeah to get the terms grounded and sell those things so

44:02 so you're thinking it should be done I think the training I was suggesting that the training Museum there's one level here that we do the training for us and then there's a separate session for the manager types to do that with their own cohort with their own level and then we all come back together we make the policy together but we have that kind of uncomfortable learning process in our own cohorts but that's not where the policy is developed the policy is developed together but but that's just how I took it I agree with you with Sonia I just think that um first of all it'd be easier to do it in a smaller group I think that um just an element of familiarity and trust

44:48 that people need to have to do this and not that you know leadership doesn't trust us or whatever but I just think like we know each other in a certain way and I think that I think other management you just don't we don't interact and work together like that all that often and I think people their own cohorts and I just blend to um get people feeling more relaxed um I think it's probably best for some of

45:34 this to be done by the board itself um managers Executives supervisors are following the process I'll just I'll just tell you that and I think it is important that they understand the basis of How It's developed I also think there's a little bit of value in some degree of separation it's almost like having an auditor and you have your accountants and there's some checks and balances that are important in that process if if there's a board policy that's developed and it can't be implemented clearly that's a problem with the policy and we need to be able to revisit that I do appreciate the point as far as knowing the basis for how this was developed and the reasoning is important

46:20 and that's going to be part of my job and Rod's job and the executive team to make sure that that happens um but I can tell you I mean there's 20 people listening in tonight in the conversation of some managers some Executives some supervisors and and I suspect they'll follow along with the process but I also think it's a good check and balance to have a little bit of Separation there all right so then as we move to phase two the new destination on the road um the intent with phase two would be to continue again with uh moving beyond the first three components of the policy uh so moving

47:06 beyond a b and c and into those directives and what that implementation might look like and this is an opportunity where we um would be able to um bring some of that discussion to the board and this is an opportunity where we could bring in an additional consultant a Dei implementation consultant that's something that we could do in phase two I'm going to set that aside for right now that's not part of tonight's discussion point because we will know more when we come back in the next work session when we do our training and when we've done our

47:51 research on what other Dei expert Consultants are out there and how do they like to work with organizations like eweb so I'm going to set that question aside but I'm just going to leave that out there that the point of phase two we could go into working with somebody at that point or we could wait and bring in an external consultant into the implementation phase so lots of options there but as we move into phase two that will take us through the end of the year its purpose is to again finish off those directives and in the reporting process and there will be two work sessions where we can work through that and identify what other folks have done for areas of focus what Frameworks are there and then how we might get

48:38 consent to adopt a policy by December so question for discussion are these the right tasks for phase two and is this um amount of time we've identified again these four work sessions through the end of the year two that would be in Phase One Two that would be in phase two in phase two they there's one um in August that we've identified in one in October um so those are the two time frames for the work sessions and then we would hope to adopt a policy by the end of the year great tasks great investment of time welcome Ben for me I think it's great that we have

49:23 the placeholders and as we kind of go along the process we'll kind of figure out do you need more or do we need less um so right now for me the time is fine um the tasks seem fine but again we're going to learn quite a bit in the first pieces and then we'll determine is this the right thing so I hope that we keep asking these questions okay we've gone down this are we still going in the right direction okay we've gone down this are we still going the right direction so breathe yes so can you define what a d-e-i implementation consultant in what we needed background experience and you know I mean when

50:09 you're looking at the proposals and you have to put an rfpl what job experience or criteria I mean I don't understand an implementation consultant would do so tell me um so there's there's uh probably there's companies that are used to coming in and doing a eydei program for these are size so they've got a lot of experience in them surveying designing part it depends on what we want to do are implementation phase but as far as this goes here it

50:54 would come in and say hey here's um I just talked about hey my experience in this area with the size and Company and a youth building foreign well I was just going to say um an implementation consultant might be

51:39 something that we do as staff anyway because we might have a policy that the board is providing Direction on and we need someone to help us to find um the ways to deploy that into the organization and where it applies so we might have a particular issue and we need some some experience from someone that says well this this is how this can kind of the rubber meets the road when you're talking about rate making policies or it's a really it's a it's a someone who can help deploy whatever policy is developed into sort of tangible actions inside the organization accept beg to my question then the timing appointment would bring them into

52:25 this process so wouldn't they come in after we've adopted a policy and and help you implement it with the staff and the organization rather than come in with us my perspective but go ahead my vision is more that they would become more like a partner I need to help shortcut special things that you've all kind of recognized will there's some some I think it's really important to bring a parking lot

53:15 I don't get the sense that you're looking for some tangible examples and give you a couple of tangible examples because think about the implementation right and this was going to be the next slide so we can go back to the previous discussion but in terms of figure we could go right and we've got this slide up here that's got two different paths that go in the forest we could go simultaneously down multiple paths or we could pick one and and do that first and then come back and do the other path so there's lots of different things um we heard tangible examples of work that the board specifically could do so I have a question here about does the board want to engage in specific topics things like how specifically can you bring a Dei lens to understanding our budget

54:02 how do we look through a Dei lens at our Capital plans how do we look through a Dei lens at the board meetings themselves we just talked about some of those um uh you know tangible points of how do we engage the public how do we make it comfortable for people to come to a board meeting and give public comment are there structures or changes we could make to the format of our meetings or the format of our process to make it more accessible to remove barriers to make it more comfortable to make people feel welcome so that we get more voices in the room and those voices that are in the room actually feel comfortable and able so that's some tangible examples on the board from staff work there could be a number

54:49 of different tangible examples right and the Frameworks that I've looked at usually break things down into leadership and organizational commitment people and uh with people they've got the internal component of hiring recruitment emotions disciplinary actions internally as well as them the Partnerships in the community aspect of people how are we engaging in an external I mean how do we do that in a comfortable or inclusive way how do we remove barriers how do we provide access and then there's the structures component right our physical buildings how do we make those comfortable can people access our materials our programs our resources if

55:35 they speak a different language if they have different physical abilities if they have different um needs um from a variety of different perspectives how can we make those things comfortable so those are the types of tangible projects we could take on we can Baseline some of those things we can identify what we can do to improve and then we can take on projects we can do pieces of that at different times but this is where a consultant can come in and provide some of that guidance along the way to say this might be a great place for eweb to start excellent answer thank you very much getting 10 on that one okay good thank you

56:24 you you know we're trying to identify just some of those headings of those directives and what we might be able to set for goals and priorities so that we know some of those areas do we want to do all of these things do we want to do that we want to do that staff work the priorities in either of those areas do we want to hire somebody if we were to hire somebody either as a consultant or as an internal staff how do we set that person up for Success are we bringing them in into a place where they can be successful um and then what is the reporting how do we set those metrics and come back so there's a number of questions that would come in phase three and we will know more by the time we get there right so this is just foreshadowing these are the types of questions that we'll be asking

57:10 for and there's no you don't need to decide that today so the pressure's off but wanted to give you a foreshadow of where we're going to be I don't know how to raise my hand too I'm not kind of looking around we go back to Facebook but one thing that I I like about what's up here in the first two bullets is that you primarily tasked staff slash staff and consultant but providing draft language and I really like that because I think where this board does its best work is where it has something sort of tangible to start with and when the when the

57:58 sheet is completely blank I think we all struggle a little bit on how to get this going and so I like the fact that there's a role for the consultant staff to do some some things where we are leveraging the expertise in this room with uh it was a bit a bit more concrete but I don't want to say concrete it sounds like it's developed but it's it's something that can be molded as opposed to not having anything to start with so I just wanted to make that observation if there's numbers on the board who disagree with that and then that's that's great but it seems like this board does its best work when there's something that can be tailored and molded and sculpted as opposed to just

58:45 created from nothing I think this format is not very easy too create out of nothing and it takes other thought and you know time and effort and discussion and explain it it's not great for that so I appreciate that as well okay I also think when we get into the implementation that they're if you look at how the policies are structured now and how the board provides oversight with very specific things like budgets Capital plans strategic plans annual goals there's there's opportunities to implement very specifically already laid out for the board

59:36 but then when you look beyond that you have to start looking at how the board participates in policy and in principles that are developed and I'll give you an example Ryan who let the room conveniently um is is tasked with developing a five-year redesign plan that we want to have sort of teed up for the board to take a look at next year that's going to really talk about changing how we're pricing our products over the next five years well that's that's an area where there's Dei components to it that need to be insured as as we go through that so there will be very specific examples of how principles like we have rate making

1:00:22 principles and Equity is one of them but is it appropriate for this board to then apply a policy to some very specific things so a lot of that's built in to the way the policies are crafted now um and so I think when we're working on this one we have to see well how how and where does not just this board but aboard 10 years from now apply this to to the the areas of oversight and control the guidance and governance and those those things at the border is chartered with so I think it's important when you look at implementation that the board is not going to be expected to implement this across the organization but it will be tasked with ensuring that these policies

1:01:09 are met in the things that the the board has oversight for anyway that's just a a general manager's perspective perfect so any other feedback on are these the right tasks is this the right investment of time I'm hearing that so far we're on the right path and we'll keep asking those questions okay we've already talked a little bit about what um phase three could look like um and so I'm gonna move on to there and just circle back to the conceptual framework and say these are the three phases we've identified the timeline the number of meetings the deliverable time frame any last comments on this roadmap

1:01:56 for now so now it's time to turn to the third part of tonight's agenda so thank you for the feedback on the roadmap um the uh third part of the agenda is to really look at having a discussion about what do we know so far about Dei work and why an organization would do this right and we know that this work is both personal which is why it's awkward and hard in turkey and it's also organizational um and so what we wanted to do is start with this process and and open up this first question to say we know that

1:02:41 Dei work is personal we know that we've had experiences at the individual level and um and how to relate to one another and we know we've seen things in media in the news we know that there are reasons that people want to get into this so I wanted to start by asking the question um why does this work matter to you personally and then we can go into in a moment why does this work matter for eweb specifically let's start with this person

1:03:26 the one-on-ones on the interviews yes this basic question and I a lot of good responses so in some ways it's an opportunity to do so of course we heard all this right um I mean for me personally change feel a an obligation as a representative of the community to try to move eweb and forward

1:04:15 best experiences that I've had and knowing that I don't I don't have the full realm of freedom of knowledge everybody has their own perspective but I I feel real imperative to try to help make it a more just and equitable organization to help move that forward in the community and I think you know eweb is a great place to be able to do that because it touches so many different parts of I mean I mean everybody has power and electricity and water and in the ways that we do and we can move it forward every bit helps and I have a young son who's 11 and I would like him to be in that

1:05:01 because that cares about these kind of in whatever way that I can help move that forward in organizations that have a lot of influence that's part of why I care about this what we need to do to close the society this is the more personal actually personally not so much related to eweb but I'll just share so I'm Jewish and um there are many ways which I am a member of the majority of whites you

1:05:47 know I there's nothing that was any different about me but I will say that in my lived experience there are a lot of ways where our society is set up um in ways that make it somehow sometimes difficult for me to practice my religion in a way that um I want to so um not quitting this to race or anything like that but I will say that I do have experience of what it's like to try to um have to ask for certain times off of work and um maybe it's inconvenient but it's an important holiday or for my kids in school what it was like always having to

1:06:32 not always but often having to argue with teachers about them not going to school on certain days so um I guess I just personally have some experience of how it feels to be a little bit different than the music I know that it can be really difficult at times to kind of speak up stand up for what you believe in when everything is kind of um set up in a different way and I imagine if you're a different race or um I don't know sexual orientation or something like that it can be even more difficult but personally I feel like I bring up that that kind of empathy

1:07:21 hey why is the work mattered personally um well I guess it's because one of the reasons it matters to me personally was because I stood up and asked people to vote for me to help guide an organization so I feel awkward to help represent my constituents as far as personally if I weren't in this role that I've that I've taken on it would be easy for me just to kind of sit back and and you know okay I've got I've got to use these prone to announce now and I've got to do do these things or that thing because that's the societal Norm up to

1:08:07 today but since I'm helping to guide an organization like this I feel a responsibility to further myself so that I can represent the people that I'm here to represent so I'm looking at it as a you know I need to I need to better myself because I am representing more than just myself in a position that I that I chose to chose to take out who just wants to jump in that's okay too clear on that as well not everybody has to speak every time

1:08:58 I'm just uh pretty quickly I guess for me I recognize that everybody sees the way I do trainings and had some experiences in with former employers where I recognize whereby my eyes have been opened to ways in which other people with different languages or different skin experience the world and uh it helps me to see the barriers that they encounter that I wasn't even aware of and I can't remember how reading characters a lot of it's just about learning more about the areas we put in place that we don't even think about um because of the way treated so just a little more about that and then close

1:09:43 the patiently the same thing just how do we remove barriers that we don't exist process but it's valuable to do so that more people in our community have better access to the same things that they were trying to provide and that we have access to so I'm lost if you want to be yeah well no not a problem I might agree with you know what everybody else said especially John about representing a constituency but personally um you know all my grandchildren are either Asian American African-American or Native American fifty percent of our lessons so um I've got that in my family and I understand I want if I could help build a framework

1:10:28 in any organization or institution that will help them navigate that they go from the third grade to Junior College but you know personally I you know when I was drafted and came back to this town from Vietnam and uh we weren't really looked upon as good people in fact we were ostracized called baby killers and I had a little bit that I called it temporary discrimination because I was labeled as one of those you know couldn't wear your uniforms couldn't do anything people spit on you and it wasn't very pleasant experience and that's embedded in me forever and I have a lot of friends that are really divorced whether it be religion or race or whatever and uh and so being that old my guy the Bubble Boy that's lived here this entire life I

1:11:13 still think it's extremely important and something that if we can help make this a better organization and just you know when there's one instance through a million instances this continues a legacy to make it better why not so I'm in I guess In fairness since everybody else is sharing um I'm gonna go very pragmatic um the group and family uh I have a sister parents and of course but um my parents were very inclusive and so I grew up in this idea and they would ask you know like we're on a vacation what do you want to do so I'd say dinosaurs

1:12:04 and they they included us uh my sister and I and helped us do the things so they involved them so I went through school um and into my work life and I didn't know any better and I found inclusion helps these Concepts and thinking about getting people involved teamwork it worked networking we're really hit home was when I went to Colorado years to work in Consulting and I got to fly around and hit the group I worked in that was notified dimensional and um you know I would really like camera cooking for a minute but I really like something that son just said in our one-on-one which was uh University creates creativity and and that is so true from my

1:12:50 experience and so very pragmatically um if we're trying to solve all these problems that we're facing we've got so many opportunities understanding diversity and inclusion um in a very pragmatic sense I think it's a lot of business sense there's dozens of studies to show this of course but that's been my experience and that's one of my interests yeah I'll just share as well too just briefly and I just really want to Echo a lot of what I've heard you know I really feel like this work can improve lives and that's really where I'm coming you know I know I see on a regular basis that hatred and discrimination are literally killing people or making people very sick from the trauma and the

1:13:37 emotional toll that it's taking and I think a lot about each person having unique gifts and talents and I see all these barriers that come into their ability to really shine with those unique gifts and talents and I think about all the problems that the world is facing and what if everyone could bring their unique talents to Bear right and their gifts to Bear around the world and what kind of a amazing place would that be and so as a Public Employee I feel a very strong responsibility to figure out how we can allow that um those gifts and talents to shine remove those barriers to our constituents I feel like we have the power and the responsibility to think about that for our public institution to

1:14:24 figure out how we can make the world a better place than trying to improve lives okay great were you pointing at me no do you I just want to give you an opportunity to speak if you wanted to but no pressure pressure and it's enlightening to listen to I'm very perspective on this I guess I've maybe this was ingrained when I was a real strong sense of responsibility things that you're accountable to or things that you're working on or people you're interacting with and what I do see such polarization around

1:15:09 the world and and hatred I feel very compelled and this it's been not not just here because I've most of my adult life I've not lived in Eugene I was born here and left and came back and throughout those experiences I've just really had this sense that especially when you're in an organization that is as influential in a community that eweb is I feel responsible for that um and so to help facilitate that and to set up the organization to be to be better in the future and for me that that means to be empathetic to be inclusive to leverage diversity so that

1:15:55 you can have creative ideas and and more perspectives and better problem solving and you need inclusivity to to be able to to do that and then you need Equity to look at this from an outcome perspective not just a starting point perspective so for me I I feel a high level of responsibility independent quite honestly of what this board decides as a policy that we need to set up the organization to be able to to do this going forward and to be better um and um I guess the other thing that has always been ingrained in me is maybe this this

1:16:40 impatience or not being satisfied not being satisfied and so always sort of looking at what's next um that's a personal problem I suppose um but you know what's next for the organization how does how does this set up future boards future general managers future employees future customers to be um to be better served so that's what really that personally it matters to me for that reason and then also um just the people I personally care about and and wanting them to have

1:17:26 opportunities and networking environments and be in communities where this is valued I just really want to say thank you to everyone for being willing to share um whether you choose to share in the future or not I mean I think it's just a wonderful act so thank you I appreciate it um so now we want to move into the next component right and this is really intended to be a brainstorm activity um you know rod and I spent some time thinking about how does this relate to eweb right we just talked about where we're coming from from a personal standpoint and now I want to think about it from an organizational standpoint and there are a number of reasons why understanding diversity equity and inclusion issues relates to eweb some

1:18:13 are big and Squishy uh and you know maybe you know based on our values others are really tangible and nitty-gritty and down to the you know particular issue right and all of those matter and so what I wanted to do is just give you know a couple of examples that rod and I had talked through you know and you've all said a lot of this so far so we want to meet the needs of our customer owners we want to help ensure our customers are seen and heard to make sure that we're providing the services that our customers and our community need and serve the entire Community we want to affirm that these are our values and and not be afraid to say them out loud and make sure that the public hears that this is part of our

1:18:59 values the themes and the concepts of Dei might seem obvious but it really is important to speak them out loud and state them explicitly and do that in a public setting um we want to ensure that employees can live the values of safety right not just physical safety but also psychological safety uh and we want to support our community so we want to provide a work environment where people feel safe to participate and be a valued voice in the entire eweb community and then we also want to move forward with this continuous Improvement culture creating an environment just like we're trying to create here where it's safe to be vulnerable it's safe to make mistakes it's safe to continue to learn we all

1:19:45 know that we don't have all the answers and we're supporting each other in that but also hold us accountable for our actions when we do make a mistake we acknowledge it we learn from it and we move forward so what I'd like to do is you know that's just a few thoughts that a lot of those are more in the the big you know squishy realm um and so I want to just acknowledge that there's many different reasons why this work can be important to e-web down to so um you know uh you know big things like we were just talking about down to little things like recruiting or grants or some other things that we'll talk about and we have some examples to go through but I wanted to open it up what are all the ways that you can think of that Dei work can

1:20:30 matter for eweb well I think a lot about Public Presentation so we often you know have have public transportation uh since we want to we want to gather feedback and we want to make sure that the public is formed or feels able to come to us when they have something to say and I do think that these board meetings sometimes make it really difficult and can be kind of intimidating and off-putting for for some people some people might feel super comfortable coming and testifying or sitting through one of these meetings but I think that it impedes participation in some ways and then I also think like just even serving on the

1:21:16 board right this is a pretty um reformal setting you can also be intimidating for people so as in the future as new people come onto the board if we really want to attract a diverse cohort of people then um maybe you just need to think about how we function as a board so in the first one meet the needs of our customers of honor and help ensure that all customers are seen and heard

1:22:05 services one of the things that has always been a challenge to me in in that aspect because I see you I hear what you're saying I may not be able to go down that road because the the it just doesn't work right if somebody is testifying and they're they're asking us to do something that just isn't pragmatic let's say how what I want to be able to do is figure out the way that I you know I can say I hear you thank you for your testimony but to that person if I then turn around and take an action item that is going to

1:22:50 take awake at liebering out and they've been coming to 10 meetings saying don't take the legally bring out they're gonna feel that I'm not hearing them so I guess the question that I have with that is how do I acknowledge that I understand that and I can acknowledge it knowing that I've heard it but I have to go I'm making a different decision but how do I convey that to them that they felt that they've been hurt they're that their thoughts have been been used well and this is that I feel I feel some of our public participation is a little performative right like um not necessarily done

1:23:35 because people are meaningful way and it's not because we've set up the process to be that way but sometimes that's just kind of how it feels yeah and I mean and that's that's kind of the position you know that's where you know you talk about the formality of the board that's almost a function of being a board you know you have to be semi semi-formal because we are taking uh policy decisions and making making decisions on the inputs that we've been given so I guess when I saw that our customers are seated for that's an area that is a difficult to convey sometimes

1:24:26 I just I also think about about like where we make decisions about um how people are able to pay their bills for instance so the clothes are our lobbying and we're talking about when the city takes over orders what how we're gonna help make it so that people can come in to me that's kind of a issue that kind of Falls right in here because it might be easy to assume that most people can pay their bills online or whatever but there's a certain segment of the population that he doesn't have regular access to that connects regular banking systems like that or also there are I've heard from some older customers find it really hard to engage with the website and

1:25:13 figure things out that way so as if so much of our stuff to be internet foreign perspective about what that for me gets at that creativity that about having all of these different ideas and viewpoints and perspectives that we are coming together to help create new ideas and also figure out what the gaps are and what we're doing and having and having a

1:26:00 goal that feel comfortable bringing those ideas and being a part of this organization to share them so that's that's kind of the the diversity side of it then they're the equity side of it for me is you know we have we have rates and how do those rates impact different groups and we have different Investments that we have to implement and how how do we equity equitably and fairly maybe cite those are we citing those in a place where it's going to impact a group that's already been negative and natively impacted by something else so how do we kind of spread the burden and or the benefit in ways that are fair understanding what fairness and what

1:26:47 um what other barriers there are to the people that are impacted fairness may be different to one group over another because of the background and the treatment that they've had for a long period of time and then inclusion for me is you know how do we how do we reach these different voices and you know like many was talking about from uh I don't know people from a board perspective and getting voices here I know it was a pain when I first started on this organization we only met in person and we couldn't have a computer and then we've kind of moved to through coven um we now have this hybrid situation and I would argue that I hope that we keep the hybrid situation yes is it maybe a

1:27:33 pain to have a computer in the room and all of us having to you know deal with the technology but it creates opportunities for people who maybe work later in the day or you know they can come and maybe they participate in the public hearing on a break or they have kids at home and are a single you know single person but they want to voice their opinion at least there's more of an opportunity for them to come and provide that you know and I appreciate that we have different ways to get the information out there and I'll say this too when we went through the Lee bird process we went through the process for citing it's part of having the process that meets people where they're at and so to meet people where they're at we have to understand where they're coming from and that's

1:28:19 you know I mean understanding differences is how we get and we need better policies and and having a variety of options and you know the Libra we had 20 different meetings on that that was because it was a very big decision and do we have to have 20 different meetings no but we do need to make sure that whatever process we're setting up for the decision we're trying to make we'll meet people at the different places maybe it's different times of day maybe it's you know different formats or different ways that people learn and engage and and that to me is what this work is really important for and as we have a board discussion you know understanding that people don't engage in the same way

1:29:04 maybe to get people's ideas out need to be asked and that's that's one of the extrovert versus introvert sorts of things now you know we're in a meeting here but that might be different at a managerial level I have a staff member who's fantastic but they will not speak up unless I ask them for it and but they have really great ideas I need to give them space to do that and understand what that looks like for them and you know as an organization I think that's just a recognition of where are people coming from and again we all bring our own perspectives we don't know everybody so bringing that diversity in helps us all learn together okay that's that's my

1:29:53 um I won't repeat um all that's been said because that would be silly um but thank you all for articulating many of the very the many things that we could uh many ways in which this effort can help us to be a better organization I would just add a few um Mindy mentioned the the technology accessibility which to me is a huge piece um and and really all the ways in which people interface with our services and programs you know try to make sure that that people with all the different types of abilities and skills can access our programs um and part of that is like language accessibility right just thinking about if I'm a English speaker can I access um our program so that's just one

1:30:39 example um and then the other is we'll talk briefly I think about hiring processes and practices but there's a number of steps that can be taken to um just broaden the pool that we even are considering the jobs just in the way we advertise our jobs so um you know there's a host of opportunities there to diversify our Workforce thank you so lastly why do you think DDI matters agree with so let's just have several examples um we're going to go to Ami hopefully soon and that's going to really diversify and how it's going to affect a diverse group of people that are our customers because some people are going to get it they're going to have the technology to implement it some people

1:31:25 don't have a clueless like me that you know I don't have a digital watch because I don't understand it so how do we make it it's Equitable to everybody so they can all take advantage of the technological advances that we're going to promote Through Time abuse and everything else and I think that really matters and so we have that Equity part in it another Equity thing is like you know when we charge people to pump water up in the South Hills but we don't charge people up River because it cost us 14 percent more to provide their electric service than it does everybody else that's an equitable thing that's something we're going to have to address but when it works matters free web I think we're going in the right direction having sat here and gone through the boat landing thing up in Leesburg we had to have armed guards we almost got I mean it was brutal but yet the way we

1:32:10 recently handled the 40th Avenue I think that's light years of improvement in that I think it matters because we're heading in the right direction and we're going to refine something that I think has been really refined over the last decade or two in our processes and so that's why I think it matters because all of it could go there but especially with AMI I think is going to that's just just an example of how we have to adapt and recognize that there's going to be a big learning curve for a lot of people make sure everybody gets to full advantage the way we provided thank you um I'm listening and appreciative things that are brought up I'll I'll provide just some categories where I think it it

1:32:57 really matters to us and I won't get into all the specifics because I could probably be listing out a whole bunch of things for for a long time I think the the recruiting and hiring is an area that's definitely applicable I think compensation and making sure that we're Equitable in our compensation practices opportunities for advancement within the organization is an important one the inclusivity whether that really drives the creativity that you're talking about or the diverse problem solving at different perspectives continuous Improvement is another one that I that I would mention um I I also think that there's an

1:33:45 opportunity when I think about the how this board operates to um include it in our decision-making processes to to test the resiliency and the out and the of our decisions um almost as if it's another layer that gets worked in to the triple bottom line so you think about social you think about um economic and environmental you have to lay this on top of that to ensure that your decisions that nobody in this room is evaluated based on how many lines of wire you put up or how many feet of of a pipe you put in the ground this that the effectiveness of this group myself

1:34:30 included is based on the decisions that we make and so we have to be able to apply it to the decisions that we make and then the other really big category I would I would call a customer Community category which includes the access to services that were mentioned the Outreach ensuring people are informed not necessarily agreed with but heard in that process so it's access to Services um it's Equitable pricing and some of those things that will come out of like a redesign plan as we get new technologies and other things so I I would say that the other sort of bundle here is that customer Community kind of piece but all

1:35:17 those other categories and decisions and then customer communities so I could see you know seven different categories of things where I would generally see this applied that's a great list it's a great place to start um yes yeah um I'm thinking time wise as well too if you have a number of examples um I'm gonna let me push through those just um there's a number of examples of of things that we've seen in the organization in terms of how we're designing our programs um how we're supporting our staff both internally and in the community

1:36:04 um how we're uh doing a number of operational things um working with tribes grants this is coming up with Federal funding you've all mentioned you want eweb to go after Federal funding this is a big part of that you know there's a number of these types of components and Rod can touch on with you too and then we can decide if you want to take a break here in just a moment uh I think we've touched on most of these things I guess what I would say is the other agencies and other companies are also doing these processes themselves and examining who they do business and how they do business and not business and just the buying and selling but it's similar the grants and issues

1:36:50 that's one thing uh the Rival thing is it's kind of interesting I started on some land acknowledgments pretty soon I'm learning about those things that I've never seen before rights or sovereign Nations is if you start thinking about it like that we have representatives to go to the city for instance into electric continue doing business because they share some of the same values we do community environment so there's a lot of so do we reach out and so you know policy for that not necessarily but the policy helps create a sustained environment these kind of

1:37:37 things that we evaluate our decision making in our own systems consent items the cheapest is it the ldi see where some of these things can start coming together yeah so just to wrap up you know I think that the main things that we heard we heard a number of other things that you all said in the one-on-ones too so we we've documented a number of these things and and the reason that we wanted to have this discussion is that it's important for everyone to start thinking about things we we might all have certain ideas in our head but there's a number of uh areas where these issues matter for eweb and

1:38:23 figuring out that big scale and seeing places where oh I didn't even think about how it how we would might uh interact with a Sovereign Nation or I didn't think about the signage at our facility where I didn't think about how somebody who was blind might interact with trying to get a recording from the board or um you know these kinds of things really matter and the more we can hear how we're being asked uh where it can fit into our organization the more prepared we are so any less comments here and and then so we wanted to move into the policy statements and definitions next um I wanted to ask at this moment does anybody need to bring it to people want to stretch for a moment and then come back uh do we

1:39:09 want to just move into policy statements and then definitions and wrap up 10 more minutes correct foreign policies you all had in your packet we included five different examples of policies um what stands out to you from these examples and what would you want or not want to see included in usdei policy or efforts was there anything that really stood out well I guess I just want to say this part feels a little premature because we haven't had the discussion about what the definition of a working language around it and so while it's thoughtful and interesting to read these different policies I feel like we need to have a shared language of the order

1:39:56 jump into really talking about like the um this kind of just stood out was the difference between equity and equality and and being able to recognize that and Define that yeah just because I'm not there I don't know where that's at but I I saw it come up in two or three of the of the people's uh policies so if it's in two or three of them it needs to be like that stood out as that something that needs to be uh

1:40:41 Quantified maybe and that may be something that we learned going on but when I see it I mean there's a lot of things that were in all of them but there were two or three of those that it just kind of jumped out I put a does not necessarily equate to equality I mean I'm you have staff recommendations to take uh others definitions of these three terms and uh I'm kind of like with minion you know it's going to be our policy or their policy and I'm I'm okay with starting with what they have but I don't want that to be the gospel and we become Ron I want to you know we got to have a framework to start someplace but to say that that's that's it we're going to

1:41:27 take Lincoln County's definition of uh Equity uh in on Equity you've got them all three highlighted in the background or um [Music] so you know people copy our stuff all the time and it moves it on because this thing it's gonna you know taking on a life we're going to be into it until the end of the year so I'm willing to start with that but for the caveat that we get to amend it when we go because John brings up a good point then he brings up your points I'm okay with what you've recommended but I think is trying folks want to push on from the policies to the definitions

1:42:13 the commissioner schlossberg's comment what were there other thoughts I I feel kind of similarly I think it would be good to have the training piece and I mean it's valuable to see this so as we start thinking about the next phases having these as examples that we can Wander over and kind of relate that to and see what others in the arena are doing I think it's valuable for that but um you know and I I did really like the policies where it very clearly states what what we view as an organization these different terms mean and you know I think that we'll

1:42:58 pick up some of those and plagiarize where possible and and add in and modify to meet our needs too so I did like the ones that had the definitions kind of clearly outlined one thing to note as we move on to some of these definitions is that many of these organizations will have a policy statement and then they will follow that up with an action plan and in the action plan there's often a glossary that goes through some of a wide variety of terms just starting with three terms diversity equity and inclusion that we want to Define there are you know examples here to see there's you can see there's a lot of similarities there's some differences what stood out to all of you from the

1:43:46 definition of diversity and what should staff consider as a draft when we come back next session some of the differences that to me some of them took the fact of trying to list all of the different groups that are you know considered and then others kind of took a more broad sense so that was one of the what was I was thinking about how we did end up defining the policy is that what you know what path will go down is it trying to list all those different types of groups or is this something that's more broad that has essence of including them maybe not spelling it out I don't and I don't know maybe there's benefits or costs to doing

1:44:31 it either way I mean you don't want to list them all and then exclude somebody but then also how do you clearly Define that that we do want to intentionally look out for those groups um so that's kind of the trade-off and the challenge we don't want ones that are free for ones that are too verbose something that's kind of in the middle and so when I look at these definitions like our draft definition we have this pretty brief but then you look at Lane County and it's pretty long and um I feel like sometimes this gets to be too long if it's too much so I I think

1:45:19 whatever it is it's just right which maybe isn't really helpful but I guess what I'm saying is um try to include as much information as possible but not too much where you get lost and it becomes Goldilocks aside I I do think it's pretty ironic that you have diversity definitions that try to Define it very specifically and not in a diverse way so I I don't particularly I'm not a particular fan of sort of the roster of what that includes because I also look at the application that we have and it's going to evolve the community is going to change we're going to change for example when we're looking at Employee Engagement we find a very

1:46:06 drastic difference in the perspectives of Union versus non-union and I guarantee that's not listed in any diversity definition and yet it's something that we're going to have to deal with and address so um you know I agree with that there's a just right here but I also think it has to be something that can evolve with us and facilitates the other definition especially around inclusivity so just an observation and a little editorializing yeah I mean I kind of piggyback on that where these high level things the definitions are broad enough to Encompass a lot of

1:46:51 things and then as you dig down into the policy more that's where they're flushed out right so any policy you have a policy but then you have accidents so I kind of think the same way as far as definitions go is this is the definition and it's Broad and it's it's inclusive and then in the accent items wherever however or wherever those live it's more refined to our specific organization

1:47:41 scribbling yet any other comments on diversity any other things that stood out or anything else anybody well I just want to comment on something that Matt said earlier about if there's any kind of like um online videos or trainings or tutorials that we could watch and I'm just wondering if if there is there must be some out there that could be given the links to the kind of very specifically made me talk about talk about diversity talk about let's talk about Equity this is what we talk about when we talk about inclusion and I know we're going to have a training on it but like just hearing John say that the thing that was jumped out at him is equity versus quality like there's just all these

1:48:26 little things and so I'm just wondering if in preparation for our next um if we can just just like little Snippets maybe the Consultants so that when we come into the next meeting at least we have we have some kind of background on these um on these very very the vocabulary is very important well and as you can see though I guess one point that I want to make is that there is no right answer right you can have uh these different answers and and not everybody is Cookie Cutter and using the exact same thing so one of the pieces of feedback we got from the consultant that we're working with is that it can be helpful to hear what it is and what it isn't right some of these

1:49:12 definitions say diversity is diversity is not and that can be helpful to see different from a different perspective too so just any other thoughts on diversity equity anything so we already heard um uh mentioned the concept of the difference between equity and equality that stood out I love this picture throw that out there he's showed that the outcome is yes we may we may give the same rates to

1:49:59 everybody and we think that that's equal but is that there given we've determined you know stabilization that that isn't and so we have multiple programs to help people with that situation I would just what kind of strikes me about the different definitions is of course the that there's an outcome Centric as opposed to where you start but I do think we have to be careful about whether we're facilitating an outcome or

1:50:46 whether like some of these are saying that it ensures that I'm not sure as an organization that we can ensure an outcome for somebody where we're playing only a partial role in it and so um I think we can do things to facilitate it and to that our practices enable it um don't restrict it but some of these where they're ensuring that community members can Thrive I I almost think goes beyond an organizational perspective a bit I think we're gonna that's gonna be maybe the Goldilocks eating piece to to the equity definition

1:51:31 and honestly this is the one I've personally struggled with getting a grips or grip around for a long time but um definitely opportunity for people to achieve a certain outcome and what how we do and we facilitate that's important but there's also a line that I think we have to be careful of when we're talking about ensuring things as opposed to enabling last one inclusion anything stand out to you

1:52:22 I think this one's really hard to measure how do you how do you know if people are feel like they've been truly included and involved asking and and how do you show in the the work that you're doing that oh yeah these ideas came from this and it got implemented here like this one is really challenging I think a metrics perspective to because if we do something that people don't like then if I would imagine they feel like they weren't included so like John was saying people show up and testify against

1:53:07 testify for something and if we take a vote the opposite it can be really easy I think it's hard to measure the absence of something and to to kind of your points um I I also know when it comes to the community piece people don't usually show up and talk to us when they agree with us um and and so some people are very they they show up we hear them they're very vocal there's also a whole nother piece of our community that we need to be inclusive of which maybe doesn't show up for various reasons too and so um this one's just I mean it reminds me

1:53:52 of the guy who used to show up and say look there's a videotape of no birds or something because it the 5G Tower broke see no there's no birds in the video it's like well you know so I think this is going to be one that's uh we're going to have to really be intentional in how we look at how this is applied and how we're determining its success because of but Indian so you mentioned for me this one too it's somewhat about the intention I mean if I'm coming into a space and I have already made up my mind and nothing in me says is going to change that then then it's not inclusive but if we

1:54:38 have these open forums and we have people that come and present ideas and we're listening to what they have to say and we're open to the idea that maybe it's going to persuade us um then that to me is a is different but again that's something that we all measure internally I mean where each person comes to that discussion or that meeting is all internal I may come and think I mean lieberg I had no idea where it was gonna be um you know and as we went through the process it changed and and it went here and then it went there and then we listened to new ideas I mean for me that was that was a really good process even if even if at the end of that you know and

1:55:25 we're always going to disagree with somebody that's the nature of this work but if we come at it we do try to think about what ways we impact people's lives and are there ways that you know this mattered a lot to this group of people could we help the negative impact of whatever we're doing you know remove some of that burden by changing it a little bit as long as we're looking at that having an open mind for me that that is a process of conclusivity but again it's just very fabulous and hard to measure so it'll be unless that's okay um I think part of this is understanding

1:56:10 who's in the room and understanding where the absence places might be so you were talking about not I don't think it's having to agree but it's making sure yeah I just think that on the equity I'll just say one last thing that I think a big theme there is that we're starting in different places so um I agree that the Consultants can help us figure out how to measure this inclusion right I think there are strategies and I think that we need to learn more about how we how we identify those so thank you so much this has been a wonderful session we have this future home of us Dei policy here are there any last thoughts that you would like to

1:56:55 leave us with before we come back to you at the next session okay I will be gone the last thank you that's a great segue because I think there were a couple of sessions that were coming up that we wanted to potentially move in the beginning like talk about those real quick and look at our calendars and some of the dates nothing else before we move to that topic I just want to say thank you and I feel like um the reason that this is it's difficult because it's a sensitive

1:57:41 topic but also because ability I think it's sometimes hard to see like how how it all relates right we're talking about electricity and water and then suddenly we have all this Dei stuff that we have to put on top of it it's not like that it doesn't feel like a natural fit necessarily but it's important that we need to do it so um I really appreciate all the work that you are doing thank you so much for all of your authentic comments and your willingness to engage so can I just say one quick thing I'll be very quick you may sometimes wonder why Kelly who is our climate policy analyst and advisor is involved in some of these

1:58:26 other things and it's because she went through this journey of Dei with LTD and so she has and and the same with Brian back here um not necessarily in charge of rape design but he will be in charge of rape design for a while because that's what he did at his previous employer so we're leveraging the diversity of talent that people have to to help with this so in case you wonder why you see different people who might not it might not be their direct role it's in this case because she has background well I'll just add to climate change really has a climate Justice component to it and how the impacts of climate change are felt among different populations is very different and I take that very seriously and

1:59:12 that's a big part of my role and I'm trying to bring that lens a triple bottom line in the social components of some of these environmental issues on our community so there is connection to that work as well thank you all I think we definitely got a lot of information here that we can work with appreciate it I'm just picking the dates for the I couldn't adjourn it let me talk that came up we will adjourn the work session