The Chapel Hill Town Council’s recent search for a new member of its Central West Focus Area Steering Committee didn’t yield the sort of candidate the council was looking for.
The council rightly wanted the new member of the committee to accurately represent the community being affected by the committee’s decisions.
But the lack of applicants makes clear that if the Chapel Hill Town Council truly believes in having diversity on its advisory boards, it should improve its outreach.
The Central West Focus Area is historically unengaged and is largely compromised of public housing.
Because of this, it is essential for the council to reach out and put a bigger emphasis on involvement in places like the Central West Focus Area.
In order to actively engage residents who could bring diversity and unique perspectives, the Town Council must restructure its outreach.
This can be done by publicly broadcasting opportunities to serve, reformatting meetings and communicating more effectively as to what it means to serve on the committees like this.
By providing better outreach and information, the council would have an easier time uniting a diverse and knowledgeable decision-making body that is the right fit for the specific committee and invests power in the hands of stakeholders.
The problem isn’t that Chapel Hill is not a diverse place, but rather that the town is not doing a good enough job of informing its residents and sharing the importance of diversity at the local political level.
