Vision for a Better Belmont: Julie Wu

This article is the seventh installment in a series of interviews with Belmont leaders about their vision for Belmont’s future. Jeffrey North conducted this interview. It has been edited for length and clarity. – Ed.

Julie Wu is president of the Belmont Pan-Asian Coalition, co-chair of Belmont’s Diversity Equity and Inclusion Implementation Committee, and was a member of the MBTA Communities Advisory Committee. She is also a founder of  Belmont Composts! and a member of the town’s Solid Waste and Recycling Committee.

Diversity, as measured by ethnicity, race, language, gender, age, income, disability, and country of origin, has increased in Belmont’s population over the last three decades, as indicated in census data (see link below). However, this expanding diversity is not reflected in town civic life, which remains  comprised predominantly of older, relatively wealthy white residents.

BCF

The purpose of the Diversity Task Force (DTF), as charged by the Select Board in 2022, was to “suggest ideas to help educate the citizens of Belmont and make it a more welcoming community.” The DTF report contains 68 recommendations presented to the Select Board, including creating an ongoing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Implementation Committee (DEIIC). What is the role of the DEIIC?

Julie Wu

The charge of the DEIIC, a three-year committee, is pretty much limited to creating a plan for the town to implement the DTF recommendations.

The DTF recommendations are comprehensive, wide ranging, and, the DEIIC felt, important for the town to start working on right away. The DEIIC decided, especially since there is no town DEI director and no imminent plan to hire one, that we would like to spend our three years not only making a plan, but also getting a head start on implementation, despite having no budget. So we went through the recommendations, categorized them in terms of short-term, medium, and long-term feasibility, and have gotten to work seeing what we could do by ourselves, as well as what we could accomplish by talking to the various departments in town, to address what we call “low-hanging fruit”—recommendations that could be implemented relatively quickly and easily, without a need for funding or policy changes.

As for the recommendations that are more long term, our ongoing meetings with the various departments show an effort in most departments to move towards them. While the DTF recommendations were approved by the Select Board, the DEIIC has no particular authority over the other departments in terms of enforcement. We’re really just having conversations and talking about what we would all like to see happen, but I believe these conversations do in many cases help move things forward.

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What “low-hanging fruit” has the DEIIC worked on?

Julie Wu

We have talked with the facilities department about making single-occupancy bathrooms in municipal bathrooms gender inclusive. Pretty much everyone agrees with this common-sense measure that should cost little to implement. There’s no reason to designate a gender for a single-occupancy restroom. But there are regulations regarding the relative proportion of male and female bathrooms in a municipal building, and unions must apparently be consulted if there is a change, so Director of Facilities David Blazon has told us he will be working on this with the unions.

We are also in the process of sending out a simple survey to businesses to gauge, for example, whether minority business owners are experiencing discrimination, and also to see whether business owners have antidiscrimination policies.

A recommendation we felt was very important to immediately address was providing Fair Housing Law training for municipal bodies and employees. This issue was particularly relevant to the discussion of the MBTA Communities law. We wanted to ensure that Town Meeting’s discussion would not involve illegal discrimination against protected classes such as, for example, families. Lacking the budget required for real Fair Housing training, we simply notified the town clerk, moderator, Select Board, Planning Board, Zoning Board of Appeals, Town Meeting, etc., of the need for compliance with Fair Housing law and provided a relevant document describing what this meant in terms of the MBTA Communities law. This information was duly circulated prior to the Town Meeting discussion.

The DEIIC has also talked with different departments about making their forms gender inclusive.

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What are some of the DTF’s most impactful recommendations? Are those recommendations being implemented?

Julie Wu

Two of the most important recommendations were to create two DEI director positions–one for the town and one for the school district. The town has, for obvious reasons, been unable to come up with funding for a town position, but the school did hire a DEI director. She has moved on, and the school district is in the process of hiring a new one. The DEIIC would like to make sure this position remains funded.

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What are some of the most important areas for improvement for making Belmont a more welcoming community?

Julie Wu

We know from demographic data that the minorities in our community are vastly underrepresented by the town’s employees and elected representatives. Per 2020 data, the town is 76% white; the town’s municipal employees are 96% white. This disparity is something that Human Resources is absolutely aware of and taking steps to address.

In the schools, an equity audit and data from the Youth Behavior Risk Surveys have shown serious disparities and mental health issues among our kids who are either of color, LGBTQ+, or (especially) both. The DEI director was hired in part to address those issues. We hope that her replacement will continue to address these serious issues.

We need to collect more data to learn more about how marginalized groups feel in the community at large, and one of the DTF recommendations is to do a town-wide survey. This sounds like a daunting task, but we could accomplish it in an inexpensive way by modeling our survey on those done by neighboring communities and staying mostly digital.

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Are other town departments, committees, and community groups implementing the DTF recommendations? In what ways?

Julie Wu

Many of them are, sometimes of their own accord, which really just goes to show that much of our town is aligned in our goals.

For example, the Housing Trust’s goals are pretty much aligned with the DTF recommendations’ goals for housing, which include measures to increase housing affordability in Belmont. And the Housing Trust has expressed an interest in working with us on Fair Housing law training to promote compliance not only within our government but also within the community, among landlords and real estate agents.

Human Resources has implemented a multiday DEI training for all employees in the past year, and they have taken active steps to try to diversify their hires. Even if they’re not immediately successful, they are making the effort, and we’re doing our best to support those efforts.

The Police Department had already been interested in leaving the Civil Service before the DTF made its recommendations, and they have since left Civil Service, resulting in an increased overall number and more diverse pool of applicants and hires.

The Board of Health has, of its own accord, been doing its own good work, for example, addressing the effect of opioids on our community. And they are making efforts to reach out to marginalized communities by, for example, translating forms into prevalent languages in Belmont like Spanish and Chinese.

I would note that people do, in general, cite the DTF recommendations (such as our recommendation to continue hybrid meetings), to bolster their arguments in Town Meeting, which means that people value our recommendations, which is heartening.

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The number of Town Meeting members that are from traditionally underrepresented groups is low relative to their percentage of the population (almost 30% according to the 2020 census). The same is likely true for appointed members of town committees. The Belmont Pan-Asian Coalition has held candidate forums and co-sponsored a “How to run for office in Belmont” session. What other measures, for example, by the Select Board, the moderator, current Town Meeting memberss, or existing Belmont committees, might help Belmont’s governing institutions become more representative of its citizenry?

Julie Wu

Members of the Select Board have attended Belmont Pan-Asian Coalition social events. It would be a good idea for the moderator, Town Meeting members, and Belmont committees to do the same, both for the Belmont Pan-Asian Coalition events and for the other stakeholder/affinity groups in town.

The stakeholder groups have their own responsibility to encourage their membership and try to break down whatever barriers remain to civic engagement.

Members of the stakeholder groups need to step up! To those who don’t pay attention to our town governance, who leave it to others, I have to ask you to question why you are letting other people speak for you. I invite you to speak up for yourself and your own interests.

BCF

Diversity is being invited to the dance. Inclusion is being asked to dance,” according to noted diversity advocate Verna Myers. I’m not sure who added, “Equity is allowing you to choose the music.”  What does Belmont look like if we invite, ask, and allow? And what does the town look like if we don’t—if we continue the status quo?

Julie Wu

DEI is currently being villainized in this country as something radical. It’s not radical. It’s basically about having empathy for people whose life experience differs from yours and acting on that empathy, institutionalizing it, so that everyone is consistently heard and included as equally important. A more empathetic society is better for everyone. And fortunately, I think that kind of society is what most people in Belmont are striving for.

Read the full report, Recommendations to the Select Board for Advancing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Town of Belmont, from the Diversity Task Force at bit.ly/BCF-DEI-report.