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Residents tell council Department of Neighborhood Empowerment outreach has left immigrant and low‑income communities out of neighborhood-council process
Summary
Multiple community members told the City Council they found outreach by the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment inadequate, especially for limited-English and lower-income communities, and urged resources such as childcare, translation and transportation to enable broad participation.
At a public-comment period called early in the July 11 City Council meeting, multiple speakers representing neighborhood groups and community organizations told the council that the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE) had not adequately reached limited‑English and lower‑income communities in early meetings to form neighborhood councils.
Speakers said some DONE meetings had relied on small-format activities (for example, Post-it notes) without providing background information or language access. They urged the council to direct DONE to provide translation, childcare, transportation and other supports, and to use established outreach networks — block clubs, empowerment congresses and ethnic media — to notify and include historically underrepresented residents.
Why it matters: The neighborhood-council rollout is part of the city charter implementation to expand local participation. Community representatives told the council that, in their view, the process as run so far risks producing neighborhood councils dominated by well-established associations and missing low‑income, immigrant and limited‑English-speaking residents.
Speakers and organizations: Public commenters included representatives of Communities United for Real Empowerment (CURE), the Commonwealth Avenue Neighborhood Association, Korean-American stakeholders (translated by an interpreter), and the Eighth District Empowerment Congress. Commenters cited specific local meetings where outreach and interpretation had been insufficient and urged the council to require greater capacity and funding for DONE to make meetings accessible.
Council response: The chair allowed seven speakers in a 10‑minute early public comment slot and instructed council staff to include names of attendees in the official record. Council members acknowledged the concerns and encouraged sharing lists of attendees and written correspondence for the record.
Ending: Community leaders asked the council to require DONE to broaden outreach and to provide the resources needed to make participatory democracy effective across socio-economic and language groups.
