Update: Natick appoints Equity Task Force members.

Update: 10/6/20. Natick Pegasus recorded the interviews with Equity Task Force applicants.

The Natick Select Board has on its Oct. 5 agenda interviews with prospective appointees to its new Equity Task Force.

The Natick Select Board, which recently gave the go-ahead to forming an Equity Task Force, with applications due 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.”

Those vying for the at-large spots include familiar names, including a former Natick Board of Selectmen member, a Babson College educator, and the town’s current director of veterans’ services.

The applicants:

1. Jay Ball
2. Cynthia Bracciale
3. Paul Carew
4. Guimel DeCarvalho
5. Natali Gingrasfield
6. Eric Nguyen
7. Cathal Nolan
8. Tina Opie
9. Marilyn Park
10. Karen Partanen
11. Kristen Pope
12. Christine Robinson
13. Linda Valentin
14. Emily Warmington
15. Anne Wilson
16. Noel Winslow
17. Ian Wong

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.

More: Natick among 6 racial equity plan grantees

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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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