Welcome back to Podsdale.

I am your host, Public Affairs Supervisor Holly Walter,

and I'm ready to jump right into our fourth episode.

Today's topic is the city's recent adoption of an

anti-discrimination ordinance, which prohibits discrimination

based on actual or perceived race, color, religion, sex, national

origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

But what does this mean to us as employees and to our community?

I'll be talking to the research team behind the

ordinance, Librarian Christina Brady, our city's Diversity

Manager, Sharon Cini, Communications and Public Affairs

Director Kelly Corsette, Senior City Attorney Bill

Hylen and our Assistant City Manager Brent Stockwell.

But before we get into our interview, I'm sending it

over to Stephanie Hirata for this episodes, Fast Five.

Hi, I'm Public Affair

Specialist, Stephanie Hirata with five fast

things happening around the city you need to know.

Scottsdale City Court starts to list at number five.

The court now offers an online chat feature, which allows users

to receive case information and have their questions answered by

a live court clerk, right from their computers or mobile devices.

For more than a year, court staff focused on expanding

virtual services and now offer virtual civil traffic

hearings, online appointment scheduling, and the

ability to remotely obtain an order of protection.

Scottsdale City Court also allows people to virtually

file a motion, look up a case, make a payment,

request defensive driving school and other services.

You can find the court online at

ScottsdaleAZ.gov and search 'city court'.

The NCAA golf championships are at number 'fore!'.

The long awaited start of a three-year run for

the NCAA golf championships in Scottsdale is here.

The women are up first at Grayhawk Golf Club from May 21st

to the 26th followed by the men from May 28th to June 2nd,

the 2022 and 2023 nationals also will be held at Grayhawk.

The championships will be televised on the golf

channel and spectators are allowed with free admission.

Scottsdale Public Library is in our number three spot.

Arizona State Library recently awarded three

grants, totaling $11,000 to the library.

The grants will help the library expanded

citizen science program, improves staff

development, and expand virtual programming.

Two of the grants are funded through the Library

Services and Technology act, while the third grant

is funded through the American Rescue Plan Act.

And number two, our incredible police department chaplains.

Scottsdale Police Department will host an international

conference and training seminar for police chaplains in July.

The department plans to welcome 350 police chaplains and

their families for a week of training and fellowship from

July 12th through the 16th at the Hyatt Regency Gainey Ranch.

You can learn more at icpcforcops.org.

Our number one Fast Five spot goes to Scottsdale

Water Executive Director, Brian Beisemeyer.

Governor Doug Ducey recently appointed Brian to serve

as a commissioner on the Arizona Water Protection Fund.

The fund is a competitive state grant program that provides

an annual source of funding to restore, maintain, and

enhance river and riparian resources throughout Arizona.

The commissions investments have improved Arizona's

water quality in stream flows and water supplies,

biodiversity, fish and wildlife habitat, recreation,

flood control, and overall watershed health.

Congratulations, Brian!

And that's our Fast Five for this episode of Podsdale.

Got something for a future Fast Five?

Tell us by emailing communications@scottsdaleaz.gov.

I'll turn it back over to you, Holly.

Thanks Stephanie.

I also need to give a shout out to our most recent

trivia question winner facility, supervisor Craig Taylor.

Craig was correct in saying that Chief

Information Officer Brad Hartig is the person

retiring after 30 years of service to the city.

Craig, we have a $10 gift card with your name on it.

Watch your email.

And if you want to be our next trivia question

winner, listen closely for the question at the

end of this podcast and email your answer to

communications@ScottsdaleAZ.gov to be entered into our drawing.

Well, our episode today focuses on our newly passed

anti-discrimination ordinance and in fact, I have the entire

anti-discrimination ordinance research team with me today.

So this will be our first podcast with

an entire team of people to interview.

But I welcome you all here with us today.

And thank you for joining me.

Glad to be here.

Yeah.

First off, I'm going to ask Sharon,

why is the adoption of an anti-discrimination

ordinance so important to the City of Scottsdale?

Well, first of all, good afternoon, everyone.

How are you doing?

Good to see all my colleagues here.

And it's a great question because

we did a tremendous amount of work.

And you know, I've been here for seven years

and over the years, we've interfaced with.

Many people within our diverse community.

And we discovered in our conversations and through

citizens reporting, that there were some things

going on out there that specifically impacted people,

including our LGBT community, because there were things

like, you know, no legal protections and recourse.

And so this new local, inclusive, anti-discrimination

ordinance is really a substantial move to establish

that expanded legal, civil rights for all people

working, visiting, and living in Scottsdale.

And so that makes me super proud because

I, I love living here in Scottsdale.

It's a great city.

And I also love the fact that Scottsdale is joining other

Arizona cities like Flagstaff and Phoenix, Sedona, Tempe,

Tucson, my hometown of Winslow and most recently Mesa.

And so the, the ordinance is really great because it adds

sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes.

Right now the protected classes are things like race,

color, religion, sex, national origin, age, and disability.

But what this did is it really, you know, it, Scottsdale

made a public commitment to fairness and equity.

And we are golden rule city, which of course I love too, because

it tells us to treat others how we would want to be treated

and to serve all with equal treatment and fair treatment.

And so you know, we hope that this,

this ordinance will help people.

Deter from any unlawful actions.

And I always talk about psychological

safety and how important that is.

And, and we know that inclusion creates that

sense of belonging and that's what we want in our

beautiful city and within our own organization.

And so I always love what one community has

said is we are open to business for everyone,

and that's exactly what ordinance has done.

Absolutely, and it sounds like we're in

good company with other cities having something similar.

Yeah, we sure are.

Now this project required some

substantial preparation and work by this entire team.

Brent, can you step us through that process?

Yeah, definitely.

Holly.

So we actually started on this last summer in the wake

and the context of the national discourse on race.

And we also support the Human Relations Commission, which is a

group of residents that have been appointed by the council to

look at these types of issues and the commission felt it was a

good time to make a recommendation again, to the City Council

that they adopt a uh, non or anti-discrimination ordinance.

So they made a recommendation at their

meeting in August that went to the Council.

And as our City Manager was listening to the council

members he recognized that we needed to do a little

bit more background work to make sure that this project

and this ordinance was ready for council approval.

So he asked that we form a team and do some more research.

And so Sharon of course, was a core part of that team.

We needed legal advice, so Bill

Hylen was added to the team for that.

We needed, a crack researcher, a great researcher.

And we had that in Christina Brady, who was also redeployed

at the time as our City Managers, Executive Assistant.

And of course we needed to make sure or that we were

thinking about how to involve the public and how to

do community involvement throughout this process.

And so Kelly Corsette was part of the team.

So we started meeting, we started doing research into um, how

other cities enforce on ordinances, how they do investigations,

what different pieces are included in their ordinances.

And we would meet regularly to talk

about this and work and develop this.

And it became clear after the election in November

that a lot of council members and the Mayor

were very interested in moving this forward.

So we really started to work to make sure that everything was as

ready as possible to go by the time the new council was seated.

This sounds like a pretty big research project.

And I know Sharon mentioned earlier that other cities

have similar ordinances, Christina, through your research.

What did you learn from other communities?

Thank you so much, Holly.

This has certainly been the most important research

project I've worked on and I'm grateful for my

background to bring some of those skills to the table.

But each member of this team conducted a lot of research on

their own and they contributed to this ordinances development.

So I want to thank them all, but I

specifically focused on Arizona's comp studies.

Those include Plano, Texas, Alexandria,

Virginia, and Henderson, Nevada.

A lot of the city codes can be found online and they

really have a range of coverage that is rather extensive.

So for instance Henderson, Nevada is one of our comp

cities and it has equal opportunity policy, which prohibits

discrimination based on certain protected classes.

And they also have protections against city

employees for retaliation, when reporting instances

of discrimination or harassment, and those

are pretty common protections that you'll see.

But I thought that Alexandra, Virginia code

was the most interesting and inspiring.

And I think that it really helped guide where we went.

So if you ever feel like looking up ordinance,

you can go there and look into theirs.

But I think that, that in addition to our sheet,

which was provided to the Scottsdale city council,

which showed the differences and the similarities

between the ordinances uh, Phoenix, Tempe, Sedona,

Flagstaff, Tucson and Winslow, was very helpful.

But to answer your question more directly, we

learned that other communities were offering.

We learned what they were offering as far as their scope

of prohibited discrimination, their protected classes,

their exemptions, and their complaint procedures.

So knowing all of that information helped

guide the development of this ordinance.

In addition to the recommendations that we

got from the Human Relations Commission.

So I think like what Sharon was saying before, it really

helps strengthened Scottsdale status as a golden rule city.

But overall, I think that this ordinance moves Scottsdale

in a very positive direction where its residents and its

visitors are going to feel more welcomed and more protected.

Absolutely.

And it definitely sounds like that background research was

vital in this process as we put our ordinance together.

Now I have a question for our attorney for Bill.

Were there protections in place in our city

prior to the adoption of this ordinance?

Yeah, Holly, there, there were there were

really two separate categories of protections before

we passed this ordinance one that applied through our

human resources ordinance to city employees themselves.

And that provides that the city is not going to discriminate

against employees based on any of the protected categories.

And those protected categories are the same ones

that ended up in the newly passed ordinance.

And then we also had we have, a housing ordinance, which more or

less mirrored, the federal laws regarding housing discrimination.

Those were the two areas that had the force of law, but of

course we also have administrative regulation 333, which is

very broad about, you know, essentially treating employees

and citizens and customers uh, fairly, And because Scottsdale

is obviously a values based organization, but those, those

far reaching protections don't have the force of law because

they're in administrative regulation rather than the code.

So that's what existed prior to this.

Now, Sharon is, is

discrimination a problem in Scottsdale?

You know, that's such a great question.

I think it's, it's important that we're very

real about discrimination, harassment, and

retaliation because, yes, it does exist.

And you know, my, my, my office is a community service and we

also housed our LGBT liaisons, both, the past and the present.

So one of them of course, was David Simmons who

worked so hard over the years and committed his time.

The same thing is Stanna Slater who is our LGBT liaison.

And then Hugh Lockerby in our Scottsdale Police Department.

All of us are, have been an open door for anyone to discuss

these situations as we described here with regards to it.

And the one that comes to mind is that we

know that there have been employment cases.

One that had happened prior to my time here in

Scottsdale, and it was a popular local wine bar.

And unfortunately had to close his doors because of the actual

and perceived prejudice that involved a male employee's, sexual

orientation, and a male coworker who was perceived to be gay.

And he began, being harassed and being teased and all

these things because he was standing up for his coworker.

Then we also know that public comments, that

we've had since the ordinance has been proposed.

It unveiled some further incidences in our

community that we actually weren't aware of.

Some that included threats of harm.

Some had unfair employment practices in the past, and

you know, a lot of the prejudice attitudes are supported

by misinformation and , and sometimes, even worse, we

can't really, if someone can't prove discrimination,

it takes its toll on a person because it's, that person

has the responsibility to bring in that proof right?

And sometimes they're microaggressions and

microaggressions, are those everyday subtle,

intentional, and sometimes non-intentional, interactions

or behaviors that communicate some sort of bias.

And when citizens or employees tell us their

stories, they are sharing their instinct

feelings they get because of the interaction.

Sometimes they've been in bars where they've been

called a name, or they've been feel like being uh,

unfairly treated because of their sexual orientation

or the color of their skin, or what have you.

But that instinctual feeling is telling them that

someone is communicating hostile or disrespectful

or negative racial or other insults towards them.

And those behaviors, I think that both for staff and

for the community, we need to be aware of what those

look like, because some of them are really different.

Sometimes they're microassaults, that are when people behave in

a discriminatory manner, but not, but aren't explicitly intending

to offend someone or sometimes they can be micro-insults.

Which are when people unintentionally communicate

discriminatory messages to members of targeted groups.

And most importantly the micro-invalidations, which deny the

realities of what members of targeted populations experience.

And so we have to keep in mind that when we're we all have

a right to work free from discrimination, harassment, and

retaliation, because we have to work, we have to live, we have

to pay our bills, we have to feed our families, to pay off debt.

And that includes everyone, right?

Regardless of, of sexual orientation or gender identity, or race,

or national origin, or your religious beliefs, or what have you.

And so discrimination and other

behaviors, that occurred do exist.

So let's do our part to prevent it from happening

in the first place and continue to be growth minded.

Using our diversity competencies, we have them, our staff are

skilled, they're competent, and we have to use that to positively

create a safe, healthy workplace and inclusive community.

Absolutely.

As you said, sometimes it is an uncomfortable

topic for people to discuss, but sadly, there are

some instances of discrimination that do exist.

Thinking about that, what does this ordinance mean?

Bill?

Can you talk more about what protections

the ordinance provides and who's protected?

Sure Holly, to take the second question.

First, the ordinance generally prohibits discrimination based on

these categories, which are race, color, religion, sex, national

origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability.

And that includes both, uh, If you actually fall into that

category and the, I would imagine, somewhat less likely

situation where someone perceives you as falling into that

category and discriminates against you, but is actually

incorrect about whether you belong to that category.

So that's where the perceived language comes in.

So You know, I've been asked this before, when, when

people say who's covered and I say everybody's covered.

Because I mean, in fact, that's, that's true.

Everybody has a race.

Everybody has a sexual orientation,

gender identity, a national origin.

So everyone is covered by this ordinance.

And it also includes again, probably, the rather

rare circumstance of what's called by the shorthand

reverse discrimination, it would apply both the

discrimination against someone who is, for example,

black, but also discrimination against someone who

is white you know, same thing with male and female.

So everybody's covered the way it's

structured is really in two separate parts.

The first part covers city services.

And that provides that the city, it's contractors, it's

employees, it's volunteers, are not going to discriminate

in any way in, in providing city services based on

those protected categories that I just talked about.

And then the second area is covers public

accommodations, employment, and housing.

So any employer, in the city is prohibited by this ordinance

from discriminating against its employees or applicants

for employment based on those categories, any place of

public accommodation which is, is, is relatively broad.

So.

Certainly includes restaurants.

You know, basically any business that is offering services

to the public are also prohibited from discriminating

based on those categories to its to its customers.

And then the final area is housing.

And again, the same categories are protected.

So anyone offering for sale or rental, any kind of housing

can't discriminate based on those protected categories.

So in a nutshell, that's what the ordinance does.

Protection for all, I like that answer.

Now, Sharon, we've talked about the ordinance, how the

ordinance prohibits discrimination, harassment, and retaliation.

What, what do those terms mean?

So first of all, the ordinance

says that discrimination, harassment

and retaliation is strictly prohibited.

And so let's start with discrimination.

Discrimination is based on any protected class.

And under this policy, it means engaging in or making

directly or indirectly any act, policy, or practice that

unfavorably subjects any person to different or separate

treatment on the basis of actual or perceived classes.

So there's the action there, there you're making

indirect or directly, unfavorable statements to someone.

And most importantly, that discrimination also includes

unfavorable, different or separate treatment of a person based

on a person's association with someone of a protected class.

And then harassment is verbal, written, physical conduct

that denigrates or shows hostility towards an individual

because of actual or perceived protected class.

So harassment looks like name

calling, slurs, negative stereotyping.

It could involve threatening, intimidating, or hostile

events, denigrating jokes, and written or graphic

material that denigrates or shows hostility or aversion

towards an individual or group that is placed on things

like walls or elsewhere on the employer's premises.

Circulated, posted in the workplace, via

email phone, including voice messages, text

messages, social work sites, and other means.

And then of course, harassment is for example,

if someone reports discrimination or harassment

and participates in the investigation.

And you know, we don't want to have people who are

involved with, you know, these types of things.

And that means supervisors.

You know, directors all the way up.

We don't, we want to make sure that retaliation and we have

a responsibility to make sure retaliation doesn't happen.

And so under the policy, it means any act policy

or practice that unfavorably again, subjects,

a person to different or separate treatments.

Because they're recording or they're opposing

any practice prohibited under this article.

So of course the city strongly encourages reporting of

any perceived incidences of discrimination and harassment.

And we have our own internal processes and

AR333 that helps employees guide us through that.

And we also have an open door policy.

My office is one of them, but really any manager is

there as open door avenue to help staff either, you

know, through consultation or questions that they

may have resources or just to be able to be an ally.

So I hope that answers your question, Holly.

That's great.

I appreciate that.

You explain those terms further.

I think that's important for our listeners and

our employees to understand what those terms mean.

Now Bill mentioned the ordinance covers two separate areas.

Brent, can you add anything to that?

And what will the impact be to Scottsdale employees?

Yeah, Holly, I think the thing

that is going to be most important and to, employees

to understand is what's the impact to them.

And as, as Bill said earlier and, and even explained in

the beginning about the protections that were already in

place, I think for the most part things are going to be very

similar to the way they were we'll update AR333 to include

the new anti-discrimination ordinance referenced in that.

But employees are still expected to follow AR333 discriminating

against others, including all the protected classes listed

here in the new ordinance was already included in the

types of things that employees could be, you know, aren't

supposed to do and could be disciplined or terminated for.

I think the big thing to focus on here from the employee

standpoint is, is that, the elected leadership of this

community, the Mayor and City Council, made a strong policy

statement to say that it's the city's policy, that we're

not going to discriminate, and we're going to provide

equal opportunity to all persons, whether you're actual or

perceived any of those protected classes, all of those things.

And they've made that statement as a policy statement.

And that's, that's the thing that's kind

of the first thing to make that so broad.

And that includes all city services,

all programs, all activities.

They went further too, in the policy statement and

said that all persons that get served by the city have

a right to be treated with respect and dignity and,

and kind of lay out what respect and dignity means.

And then the other thing is, is that people have

a right to receive service from the city in a

manner that promotes equality under the law.

So all people should be treated similarly.

And prohibits unlawful discrimination, including the things

that Sharon was talking about, harassment and retaliation.

So Scottsdale has always been for a very long

time, a organization that valued diversity.

You know, we have respect the individual and show caring

and compassion toward others in our employee values.

But this is a policy statement from the top of

the organization, our elected leadership that

says very clearly, how we're supposed to behave.

And it extends not just to employees and

volunteers who have always been covered under

the human resources ordinance and the AR333.

The council also applied this to themselves and

all of the appointed officials, all the board and

commission members, and they also apply this to all

of the contractors, vendors and consultants that do

work on behalf of the City of Scottsdale as well.

So that's a pretty broad, strong policy statement.

That's saying that equal opportunity is what we're

expected and anti-discrimination is what we're for.

No discrimination in any of the city's

services, policies, or activities or programs.

And the other thing I just want to mention really

quickly is I think this has been great to listen

to Sharon and Christina, and, and Bill all talk.

This was absolutely a team effort, really consistent

with our employee value of collaborate as a team.

And I think it's great to hear from some of these voices that

we're not, you know, the employees aren't always used to hearing

from, but are really important part of any of these kinds

of significant policy, uh, and teamwork efforts that we do.

I think it's great that a

team worked on this to put this together.

And it's definitely an important policy

statement that applies to us all.

Bill, there are some exemptions who's exempt from this ordinance.

And what does it mean exactly to be exempt?

So exemption essentially means that a certain

conduct or certain organizations are just beyond the

scope of the ordinance that we're not gonna enforce the

ordinance against, those entities in certain situations.

Most of the exemptions are, are situational as opposed to.

Completely excluding you know, a

certain organization from the scope.

So one of the big exemptions has to

do with, with the first amendment.

And this would be an exemption regardless of whether

we stated in the ordinance or not because it's the

law, but we did take the trouble of stating it in the

ordinance because we wanted to be very clear about that.

But the first amendment does provide a certain freedoms,

obviously with regard to expression and we made clear to, to

state that nothing in this ordinance is going to be interpreted

in a way too, to infringe on people's first amendment rights.

And that includes freedom of speech, freedom

of religion and freedom of association.

So there's a relatively major case that came down from

the Arizona Supreme Court about Uh, wedding invitations

sort of handmade wedding invitations, and the Supreme

Court said, you know, that's, that's expressive

activity that, that's covered by the first amendment.

And you have the rights to determine who you're

going to undertake that expressive activity on

behalf of even though it's a commercial transaction.

So they're also more limited exemptions.

So some of them apply to for example, religious organizations.

But religious organizations are not

completely exempt from the ordinance there.

Their exempt to the extent that they're employing someone to

perform sort of religious, functions as an employee a bonafide,

private membership clubs are also exempt both in employment

and in, in housing, if they're providing them to to members.

Okay.

So the exemptions are there, they're there are somewhat limited.

And like I said, they're situational.

And another one I should add is that if you're actually living

in a, in a house or a dwelling, and you want to rent out, part

of that dwelling you're exempt in, in that respect, because that

also implicates the first amendment right of free association,

because you're actually choosing someone who you want to live

with as opposed to you know, just, you know, owning a house and

not living in it and saying, we're going to rent out this house.

So that that's another exemption.

Okay, well that, that makes sense.

Thank you for providing those examples.

I now have a communication-based questions.

So I'm going to ask this of Kelly.

What were some of the questions or concerns

from the public about this ordinance?

Thanks, Holly.

You know, I think with something like this,

the council primarily heard from the public

through emails and, and direct contacts and yeah.

There's a lot of misinformation out

there, on this topic in particular.

So people raising concerns about essentially a business

owner having to choose between their faith and following

the law and staying open, which is really an, a, an extreme

extrapolation of, of how this ordinance might affect someone

as, as Bill just described, there are, there are legitimate

exemptions that, that acknowledge people's individual face and

how they might come up against some of these sorts of things.

So I think those were the things that people were bringing

up and some of the public input was legitimately wanting

to learn you know, people who heard this sort of thing

and seeking real answers to a concern that they had.

And Brent, I know in particular did an excellent

job communicating with a lot of residents who'd

reached out to the city wanting more information.

And and, and so those people came away with with

a better understanding of what this ordinance

is and of equal importance, what it is not.

There are others that just choose extreme examples as,

as the reason they do not want to extend protection

to people in the community who as, as Sharon described

are authentically, suffering from from different forms

of discrimination based simply upon who they are.

And so what we saw through all that was was

a community hearing about something, learning

about something and then and then weighing in.

And I think the whole thing is really a great

example of, of how local government works

really and how government in general can work.

Which is bringing up a topic that, that we

are exploring per City Council direction.

And, and actually, let me back up with that quickly

before we earlier in the podcasts, we've mentioned the

Human Relations Commission, and this is something, this

is a group of residents appointed by the City Council

to, to advise the council on, on topics in this area.

And that group had had really, since last summer, and

probably previous iterations of the group as well, had

been recommending that the council act in this area.

And, and those, those are individual residents.

Who've been hearing from there who, who have their own beliefs

and opinions, but also have been hearing from friends and

neighbors and family and businesses with whom they're associates.

So that really public process comes through and

that's how our local government process works.

So those are residents they're hearing from other residents.

They're advising the City Council,

the City Council's saying, yes.

We agree.

We want to pursue this City Manager then activates his

staff, which is this team that we're talking to today.

We continue creating drafts, talking with the different

commissions, talking with the community and then

bringing something back in, in public meetings to the

City Council where they weigh in and ultimately act.

So there's a lot of touch points for the public here.

And I think it's just a perfect example of how the,

the residents can have a voice, how the boards and

commissions are involved and ultimately how the,

the city council considers and hears something.

So I, I really love it as, as an example of how

local government works on behalf of the people.

Thanks, Kelly.

It is a great example.

And I, and I know we will continue to have

conversations about the ordinance and continue

answering questions and educating the public.

I think that's an important piece that goes along with this.

Now Kelly offered a good segue to this next question that I

have for Sharon, the Human Relations Commission recently hosted

a town hall that placed a lot of focus on this ordinance.

What did we learn from the town hall, Sharon?

Yeah, this is another great question.

And I really am thankful that we work with

the Human Relations Commission and I've been

working with several groups over the years.

And every time they are just dynamic,

incredible, compassionate people.

And so we came up with the virtual town

halls as part of the response from last year.

And I, I, I really like to say that what we learned in

each of them and in particularly last night or this past

week, we it was called, Riots, Racism and Reconciliation.

And we really didn't know how that was going to be

how that was, , how it was going to be received.

And what we learned from it is that there are many people

out there who were able to identify not only their feelings

about what had happened here in Scottsdale, but also recognize

that, you know, the very good at Scottsdale has done.

So for example, when we, when we played the videos of the riots

and we had people talk about that and process it and, and share

their experience of what they were feeling at that time, we also

needed to recognize really that the next day, the next morning

they were residents out there, cleaning up the glass and helping

the businesses to basically find that reconciliation, right?

Which is the last R and the reconciliation I think is, is

something that's going to be very powerful because people are

still in action mode and some people are still in learning mode.

Some people are still, you know questioning whether or not

it's, something different than what we're talking about.

And, and so we still definitely have all those barriers

out there, but town halls you know, provide the mechanism

to, for our residents to be able to tell us their truth.

And I think a lot of that truth was said in in Wednesday's,

virtual town hall, but we got to hear some incredible

stories of resiliency and but also a frustration

that, you know, why is this continuing to happen?

And, and what, what can we do as a community to stand together

as a front to make sure that people are, are, are respected?

You know, again, regardless of how old they are, how big they

are, what if they have a disability or, you know, or the color

of their skin, or if they're a gen Z or what have you, right?

People want to be respected.

And for the most part, I was really glad to hear

this too, is that we, 90% of the population gets it.

Right?

And speaking of data, I think it's also really important

that when we bring up things like 80% of Scottsdale is

in the white category, I think a commissioner wrote in

did a really nice job to the audience of saying, you

know, that doesn't mean it's just, you know, this race.

It means that there's lots of diversity even within these races.

And from my perspective, we have a great opportunity here

to engage that 80% because it is the largest population.

And I've said this over and over, over the years and, and I've

heard people really appreciate that, we aren't just focusing

in on just the the traditional demographics, but really being

inclusive because there are, as mentioned, there's many allies.

That are out there working with us and, and doing their best

to bring light to where they can within their workplaces,

across our city, within our departments, where have you.

You know, lots of different places.

And so what we're learning is is that we are going in the

right direction and our citizens and our employees are looking

for leadership to, to provide that for them because when

they do that, Everything else begins to grow from there.

And I think we have a great direction now.

We have a stronger policy statement.

I think citizens are in action mode and I just

look forward to, what's gonna be happening in

the next few years as we evolve this process.

Right.

And I have to say personally, I had the opportunity to

attend the town hall and I thought it was really insightful.

So anyone who didn't have the opportunity to listen

in, we do have a recording of the town hall available

on the city's YouTube channel for anyone else who

would like to listen and learn from that experience.

So now we have the ordinance in place.

I'll ask Kelly, what are our next steps as a city?

And where can we learn more?

Well, we've, we've got information online.

Related to the, the ordinance itself.

People can read it.

They can look at the, the council presentation on the topic.

We are developing some communication, specific

communications, just to help people understand it more.

And this podcast is one of those ideas.

So part of our effort, as with a lot of things that

we do as a city, part of our effort is to inform our

employees and help our workforce become more knowledgeable.

And so it's great that we're having this discussion

here on Podsdale, and we will also look at some

other opportunities inside the organization.

And, and of course I think it was mentioned earlier, we've got

some of our admin regs that that may need adjustment based on

the fact that we have this in place now and things have changed.

So all those sorts of things will be happening.

Through, uh, through the different ways that

we connect with the Scottsdale employees to,

to help folks understand what's going on.

At the same time, we're looking outside and thinking about

things that we can do to help the community understand.

And since a lot of this is, is potentially impactful

to small businesses, hopefully not because Uh,

because if it impacts small businesses, it means

they may be involved in some form of discrimination.

So it's potentially impactful in that area.

So we're going to be working with the chamber to see

how we might be able to connect with, with the small

business community and, and give them the information

that they need so that they understand what the rules are.

And that could take the form of a webinar or something like that,

which I think is an interesting idea in, and the nice thing is

over the past year, a lot of people have become used to attending

webinars, listening to podcasts,you know, gathering information

maybe a little bit differently than than they had in the past.

So it gives us some new tools in the toolbox.

So we're definitely looking at that form

of external facing communication as well.

And.

And we'll roll in information into other city publications.

In fact, it's in our resident

newsletter, that's going out as we speak.

There's a, there's an item in that newsletter that

talks about the new anti-discrimination ordinance.

So really just trying to continue the momentum to help

people understand what the, what the city council has

adopted and how it impacts them and the community.

And then of course, through efforts like this inside our

organization to help our employees understand as well.

So stay tuned more to come on this more to learn

though Kelly, Christina, Sharon, Bill, Brent, I appreciate your

time and thank you for what you've done to work on this ordinance

and, and get this out to the organization, out to our community.

And I appreciate your time today.

Thank you for being with me.

Thank you so much.

Thanks Holly.

We love Podsdale.

Keep up the great work here.

Thanks everyone.

Before we go, I'm going to wrap it

up with today's trivia question.

Scottsdale Police Department is serving as

host agency for what international conference?

Email your answer to communications@ScottsdaleAZ.gov.

And we will put you in our drawing for a gift card.

And that's it for this episode of Podsdale.