Natick announced at its Select Board meeting this week that it is submitting an application for a grant designed to help the town come up with a racial equity plan.

The Racial Equity Municipal Action Plan, offered through a collaboration including the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, will only be awarded to three to five municipalities. Natick is already in the midst of forming an equity task force.

The goal of the grant program is to provide cities and towns with “technical assistance to create racial equity action plans and to take meaningful action to advance racial equity,” according to MAPC. Recipients will be announced by Sept. 10.

Deputy Town Administrator James Errickson says Natick’s application will focus on “barriers to housing in regards to equity and the need to make sure that we are not unnecessarily burdening any one population.” Zoning and land use will be examined, he said.

Anything developed through such a grant would need to sync up with the town’s 2030+ master plan.

Natick is partnering with neighboring communities, including Framingham, to support each other’s submissions for this program.

Wellesley has also applied for this grant.

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The Natick Select Board, which recently gave the go-ahead to forming an Equity Task Force, has opened up an application for possible members. The deadline to fill out the application is Sept. 1.

The Equity Task Force will be an 11-member public entity appointed by the Select Board and whose task will be to recommend to the Board “the mission, scope, charge, composition, term of service, and authority of a town entity to advance equity in the Natick community and town government, and to recommend a set of responsibilities for any professional staff needed to help the town pursue this aim.” Natick might bring in a consultant to work with the Task Force.

The Task Force will include the Town Administrator or designee, two Select Board members, the Human Resources Director, the Superintendent of Schools or designee, a member of the School Committee or designee, and five members at large. Preference will be given to those who have professional or life experience with equity issues, background in community engagement, experience in municipal government.

The Select Board will seek to have the at-large spots represent shall “members of historically marginalized communities.”

The Task Force shall research the experience of other municipalities’ equity-related government entities, as well as what the town and community are doing in the equity sphere.  It shall recommend a set of responsibilities for any professional staff needed to help the town advance equity.

The Task Force will be dissolved once it issues its report to the Select Board.

Related: Wellesley schools diversity director seeking to shape hearts

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On the heels of local clergy urging Natick to form a committee on diversity, equity & inclusion, and in light of current tensions over such matters, the Board of Selectmen will discuss on Wednesday a proposal to form such a body.

In a memo dated July 1 to the Natick Select Board from members Karen Adelman-Foster and Sue Salamoff, they write: “We believe that for such a town agency to be effective, its scope, charge, composition and appointing structure must be developed with careful thought and extensive input – including by and from people who may differ from those of us serving on the Select Board today.”

But before there will be a committee, there would be a 9-person task force appointed by the board. The task force would include at least one Select Board member, 2 designees of the School Committee, and 6 others with a variety of experience, including that in diversity, equity, inclusion and racial justice.

The task force would tap the community and town government for insights, including how to report and resolve incidents of discrimination, and report back to the board within 4 months of its creation.

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