The Albany Racial Inclusivity and Social Equity Commission (RISE) led a brief productive meeting on June 4th. It was mentioned that evening that the Albany Racial Equity Survey was put on hold due to concerns that the City was unable to address at this time. However, the City does wish to revise the currently published Equity statement – a statement which the Commissioners talked about at the meeting. The Commission was informed that their request for an Equity Statement Officer was not yet discussed by City Council due to their extreme workload and the proposal’s cost – an expense the city reportedly couldn’t afford right now. Due to this, the RISE commission decided to hold off on revisions to the Equity Statement.

In the meeting the Commission also discussed the formation of a read along program for the kids which featured texts talking about skin color and gender. Albany already features a read along program in the public library. However, the Commission argued that this read along would feature much more diverse texts than those available at the library.

But the Commission faces some obstacles, including funding, for their proposal. In order to get past this problem, many ideas were suggested such as getting donations through advertising on store windows as well as through a mention in the Albany newsletter. The Commission decided on forming a subcommittee to deal with these matters. However, due to many absent members, they had to save that for future meetings.

The rest of the evening was spent discussing matters of possible donations, eventually leading to an early dismissal due to a short agenda with items having already been reviewed.

–Yuval Magidash