2018/07/11 Council Agenda Packet

Deb Williams From: Brenda Bolanos-Ivory <bolanosivory@gmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2018 2:42 PM To: Deb Williams Subject: Tonight's public hearing statement Honorable Mayor and City Council. Brenda Bolanos ivory 5501 S. 2nd Ave Lowell I support the Everett Districts Now Peoples Choice 5/2 as you know. 5 districts and 2 at large. My input today is about the city's outreach and public survey on districting. When you all discussed it a few weeks ago, several of you stated that 500 people's responses were not enough to consider it a valid and worthwhile survey. I attended the National Association of Citizen Oversight for Law Enforcement conference in Seattle two weeks ago. The federally mandated citizen oversight of Seattle police OLEO conducted an outreach and public survey, too. They received almost 300 responses. They considered it valid and important feedback. Seattle has 704,000 population and 300 is viable input for them to make changes. Everett has 110,000 population and 500 is NOT enough people to make changes?. I'm not okay with that. When you tell us to engage with city government we expect a result from our valuable time. When we engage, and our input is invalidated, we stop engaging. Thats why so many people say they "feel unrepresented." The persistent "band of brothers and sisters" in Everett Districts Now represent the people in our city who've been burned with false engagement promises. When one of us speaks, see the thousands of citizens behind each one of us at home. Angry, disappointed, sad. We can do better. When our elected officials argue to put 4/3 as the second option on the November ballot, make no mistake, that's a top down "government choice", not a people's choice. The second people's choice from the valid survey is 7/0. 7 districts and no at large. That's all. Thank you.. Brenda Bolanos-Ivory (619)549-1657 Robert Smiley Project Director Eradicating Homelessness and Addiction. 1