Palo Alto Race & Equity Priorities: Progress Update

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PaloAltoConnect

9 min readFeb 25, 2022

Learn more about the City’s race and equity priorities and progress

Palo Alto Race & Equity Priorities: Progress Update

With news of a hate incident reported earlier this week in Palo Alto, it’s more important than ever that we band together and support the City’s race and equity efforts, which aim to foster community belonging and inclusiveness. As part of these important community values, the City of Palo Alto encourages members of our community to continue to participate in this important dialogue and to also promptly report hate crimes and hate incidents by calling our 24-hour dispatch center at (650) 329–2413, or 9–1–1 if it is an emergency.

To help guide this important community value, the City Council adopted the Race & Equity mission statement on November 16, 2020. On that same evening, the City Council voted on 16 other actions to advance equity work on a range of topics from use of police data to a community summit on gender equity issues. Notably, the City Council decided to continue this work through the Policy and Services Committee on an ongoing basis. Read more background here.

This latest blog provides updates on race and equity efforts underway or completed.

COMPLETED AND ONGOING EFFORTS

Police Initiatives

New Police Records Management System

The City debuted its new police records management system (RMS) — designed to comply with the Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA) — on Dec. 1, 2021. Since Jan. 1, 2022, the Palo Alto Police Department (PAPD) has been submitting Stop Data Collection — traffic and pedestrian stops — to the Department of Justice (DOJ) portal, as required by law. By the end of January, PAPD had submitted approximately 353 stop data records. This is a very important step in helping the City of Palo Alto to collect accurate racial identity data for Police contacts with members of the public. The first comprehensive report of this data involving Palo Alto-sized agencies will be published in April 2023.

Police Use of Force Annual Report

The City joined jurisdictions across the country in re-evaluating its approach to police accountability in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder and subsequent movement for change. As part of that, the City now annually includes use of force (UOF) information along with Independent Police Auditor (IPA) reports. The IPA is an independent, third-party contractor who conducts audits of investigations of complaints by members of the public; internal affairs investigations; all use of force investigations where a baton, chemical agent, TASER, less-lethal projectile, canine or firearm is used; and any other use of force investigation where a subject’s injuries require treatment beyond minor medical care in the field. In the new UOF report released by the Police Department on February 14, 2022 (page 299), there are details on the types of physical force used since the last update. From November 16, 2020, until the end of 2021, PAPD officers used force requiring a “Supervisor’s Report on Use of Force” a total of 16 times. During this same period, Palo Alto Police Officers responded to 42,405 calls for service; this equates to officers using force on 0.03 percent of dispatched calls.

See the full December 2020-December 2021 UOF report released by the Police Department this month here.

Police Calls for Service Interactive Map

A new pilot Calls for Service Interactive Map, in beta.

The Palo Alto Police Department recently launched a new online interactive map, providing a near real-time snapshot of the types and locations of calls for service to which officers have responded over the past 24 hours. The map, which offers enhanced community awareness around police calls while protecting personal identifying information, was developed as a better alternative to monitoring police radio scanners.

The Police Calls for Service Interactive Map is the most comprehensive of its kind in the Bay Area, offering more real-time dispatch data than similar technology. The exact geographic location of the call is not provided to ensure the confidentiality of possible crime victims. Most calls for service do not result in a police report being written, because no crime occurred. The map complements other types of information that the Police Department releases online, including a daily Police Report Log and news releases about significant incidents.

Mental Health Intervention

The PAPD collaborated with the County of Santa Clara County to take part in the Santa Clara County Psychiatric Emergency Response Team (PERT) program, which debuted in early December 2021 and teams up a police officer with a licensed mental health clinician to provide rapid intervention to a person in mental health crisis.

The City successfully advocated to be included in Santa Clara County’s new Community Mobile Response Program — known as the Trusted Response Urgent Support Team (TRUST) — which is a non-law enforcement response resource for lower-level mental health crises. The program seeks to de-escalate crisis situations and divert individuals away from hospital emergency rooms or jail, and toward alternative means such as counseling, a sobering center, a respite program or mediation through a crisis stabilization unit. This program continues to be developed by the County. Palo Alto staff stays in contact with the County staff about the implementation. In addition to the PERT program and the TRUST program, the County is also adding an additional Mobile Crisis Response Team (MCRT) in north county. New staffing, expected to start this summer, will serve north county and west foothill areas, which include Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Palo Alto, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Mountain View, Cupertino, Saratoga and portions of San Jose.

100 Conversations on Race and Reporting Hate Crimes/Incidents

The City held a Town Hall CommUNITY event in the fall focused on Community Unity considering recent hate crimes and hate incidents that have taken place, especially against Asian community members. There, the community heard from the District Attorney’s Office as well as Dr. Rona Hu of Stanford University with tools to help victims and observers.

The Human Relations Commission (HRC) led the 100 Conversations on Race and Lived Experiences in Palo Alto experience, encouraging the community to have conversations about race in small groups to grow Palo Alto into a community characterized by belonging, vested in diversity, inclusion, and equity and committed to putting words into action. The HRC shared the report findings with the Policy and Services Committee in September 2021 and with the full City Council in January 2022. The HRC are excited to discuss their upcoming efforts at their February meeting.

Workforce Diversity and Inclusion Assessment

Staff is in the process of completing an overall diversity and inclusion efforts assessment of the City workforce and collecting demographic data as a baseline for measuring workforce culture. Last year, staff completed the demographic survey of the City’s boards and commissions. The summary report, which is anonymous, will be uploaded to the City’s race and equity webpage and repeated either annually or biannually.

Current and Upcoming Events

Palo Alto Art Center Activities

The following Palo Alto Art Center programs — both recent and upcoming — celebrate diversity in Palo Alto. Learn more here.

The Art of Disability Culture

A person gives a presentation to a group of people in the middle of the exhibit.

From Sept. 11-Dec. 11, 2021, the Palo Alto Art Center presented the exhibition “The Art of Disability Culture: Artists with Disabilities Dispelling Myths, Dissolving Barriers, and Disrupting Prejudice.” The exhibition featured the work of 20 artists who self-identify as having a disability. Enhanced access features in the exhibition included QR codes that linked to visual descriptions of artworks on view, Braille labels, and live captioning for public events. An enhanced website lives on after the exhibition.

Centering Accessibility

Thanks to a grant to the Palo Alto Art Center Foundation from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, this project helps to further accessibility efforts at the Art Center. The initiative includes an advisory committee, additional access features for exhibitions, and staff training to promote a culture of inclusion.

Creative Attention: Art and Community Restoration

On view now through May 21, 2022, this exhibition explores the power of art to promote individual and community wellbeing. The exhibition also includes two artist residencies; one with artist Christine Wong Yap, who is exploring places of belonging in the community with teens and seniors, and the other is Marcel Pardo Ariza, who will be leading workshops with the Rainbow Collective, the LGBTQ+ community at Avenidas.

Palo Alto Children’s Theatre Activities

Palo Alto Children’s Theatre has focused on producing work that allows all Palo Alto residents to see themselves reflected on the stage, including: Rahi Ray of Light, The Snow Queen, and The Breath Project — Reparations Project.

Palo Alto Public Art Program

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King Artist Residency

Following the City Council direction in 2021, the Palo Alto Public Art Program is launching the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. & Coretta Scott King Artist Residency. In the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, for whom King Plaza is named, the City Council asked the Public Art Commission to consider commissioning a permanent work signaling the City’s commitment to race, equity, and belonging. The Public Art Commission has approved Rayos Magos as the first artist for the King Artist Residency, based on recommendations by a selection panel. Rayos Magos will utilize the power of storytelling and imagery in community conversations about culture, identity, and mental health within Latinx/BIPOC communities living and/or working in Palo Alto. Community programming will begin in February and his documentation of personal stories will result in a final temporary artwork displayed on King Plaza for a period of six months to one year. Learn more here.

Library Activities

The Library Director has been serving on the Anti-Racism Action Team of the Urban Libraries Council, collaborating on developing Anti-Racist Executive Leadership for Public Libraries and Trigger Terms: Harmful Detours and Healing Redirects framework. The effort addresses key trigger terms in the current media, social and political climates to help leaders grow alignment, surface misunderstandings and find paths forward through difficult conversations. Learn the framework here.

Here is a list of programs/events recently or currently hosted by the Library:

Land acknowledgments shared at the start of every program since November 2021
New Americans Program: Ongoing ESL Conversation Group, ESL Book Club, Advanced ESL
Stay Woke: A Social Justice Book Club (monthly)
Brown Bag Book Club (monthly): highlights cultural observation for monthly selection
Weekly Hispanic Heritage Month Storytimes (Sept 15 — Oct 15, 2021)
Noche de Lotería/Loteria Night (10/07/21): Virtual game night
Family Craft: Día de los Muertos Flower Crown
Weekly Native American History Month Storytimes (November 2021)
Diwali Storytime (11/02/21)
MLK, Jr. Day of Service Storytime (01/17/22)
Lunar New Year Storytimes (Feb 1–4, 2022)
Weekly Black History Month Storytimes (February 2022)
Lunar New Year Performance by Leung’s White Crane Association (02/09/22)

Learn more here about current programs.

Current library blogs celebrating diversity include:

Celebrate the Year of the Tiger and Celebrate Black History Month with the library
Upcoming: Weekly Women’s History Month Storytimes (March 2022)
In development: planning to do storytimes and other events for AAPI in May 2022.

The City of Palo Alto encourages stakeholders to participate in conversations and programs around race and equity. Engaging the community at large to provide feedback for the City’s Race and Equity strategy has been a priority throughout this process as shown in the City’s Race and Equity Framework.

Updates on the City’s ongoing efforts can be found on the Race and Equity webpage on the City website.