Making services, operations, and opportunities more equitable and accessible for everyone in Medford is a core value for my administration, across all that we do. We are working together with the community to address existing inequities in areas from housing and healthcare to food insecurity, creating opportunities for advocacy and leadership, and expanding pathways to success. It’s even more critical now that we prioritize these efforts, as the pandemic exposed even greater gaps in equity for persons of color.

• We are taking action to address barriers to health equity, access to affordable housing, employment, access to healthy foods, and quality education. In September 2020, we published a Social Justice Roadmap that details work to date, and sets goals for our continued work. 
• Working with our police department, health department, and community partners, we identified gaps in the City’s operational procedures and began updating our policies and procedures.
• We continue to pursue grant funding and other financial resources to help continue this work. Through a Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Program grant we recently hired four bilingual liaisons to work within their communities to build trust and work to understand the needs, opinions, and goals that we can continue to build upon to ensure Medford continues to be a welcoming and inclusive community.
• That work must include updates to governmental policies and procedures. Our staff and our policies should reflect the diverse community that calls Medford home. That’s why, in the first days of my administration, I took the important and necessary step to expand the existing Office of Diversity to include the mission of effective human resources, increasing diversity in our hiring policies and practices. 

I am committed to this work, and we have so much more to do. But I know that working together with all stakeholders and residents in Medford, we will create a vision and values for our community that are reflective of all people who call this city home.