Council hears update on city's equity goals

Chao Mwatela, Rochester’s new director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), made her first appearance in front of the City Council on Monday.

Mwatela, who was brought on in February, presented a review that included feedback from conversations with city department leaders and an analysis of Rochester's demographics. Mwatela followed her presentation with methods to increase DEI within the city government. 

Mwatela says her goals include recruiting and retaining diverse city employees, saying that representing the perspectives of all community members in positions of policy change is essential. 

The city currently employs 899 individuals; 93.8 percent are white and 6.2 percent are Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC). However, the Rochester community they represent is 79.4 percent white and 20.6 percent BIPOC, according to data from Minnesota Compass. Forty prercent of children in Rochester Public Schools are BIPOC, highlighting a potential demographic shift in the future.

Mwatela also recommended increased professional development to provide city employees with the skills to make decisions affecting a diverse community. Training would teach common language and historical context to provide information outside of one’s lived experience, job-specific training, and safe spaces for employees to reflect on what is learned.

“We want to provide people transferable skills,” Mwatela said. “We want them to have the proper tools, the proper language, and the lens they need to make changes.”

Mwatela’s third recommendation is to further community connection and engagement, through gathering viewpoints from all city departments and working with community members from marginalized communities. 

As part of this effort, Jenna Bowman, strategic communications and engagement director, said a new “Organizational Wide Community Engagement and DEI Working Group” will meet next week. The group has representatives from each department and will meet monthly to create an Initial Engagement Toolkit for employees and provide updates to council.

Emphasizing the importance of measurable goals, Mwatela created Departmental DEI Strategic/Action Plan Templates for city departments to record goals, timelines, and metrics for each named recommendation in her presentation. 

“Every department will have ownership,” said Mwatela. ‘They will know the work that they have done, their areas of strength and their areas of opportunity.”

Council Member Nick Campion commented on the necessity of achievable goals in regard to DEI, saying, “I saw a lot of pieces here getting me excited, getting to those specific and attainable goals are really critical.”

Haley Handelman is a summer news intern for Med City Beat. A graduate of Mayo High School, she now studies at Northwestern University.