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HomeMy WebLinkAbout12-19-23 Public Comment - T. Burnett - Belonging in BozemanFrom:Tom Burnett To:Agenda Subject:[EXTERNAL]Belonging in Bozeman Date:Monday, December 18, 2023 8:55:02 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Dear Commissioners: I Oppose Belonging in Bozeman Let’s call this the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, (DEI) plan, rather than “Belonging in Bozeman.” Aword search turns up these glaring emphases: equity 108, belonging 102, inclusion 80,diversity 33, indigenous 32, black 27, discrimination 12, underserved 23, barrier 22, collective 10, women 21 (men only 3). Bozeman paid a consultant to survey and generate this “gaps analysis.” It asked in effect, “who feels discriminated against in Bozeman?” Surprisingly, the survey found that blacks are four times as likely as Bozeman’s whites to think Bozeman is an equitable and welcoming place. I say this Plan contradicts and ignores those findings. Next time, we might just save the $75,000 appropriated and do whatever social-justice activists demand. Diversity and Equity Work in Bozeman: City Costs: At least $182,945 as of May 2022 Workplace Diversity 236 employees at 1 hour each GARE Advancing Racial Equity 7 employees at 6 hours each Officer implicit bias training 64 employees at 2.5 hours each Officer implicit bias and microagressions 5 employees at 3 hours each Officer decision making 64 employees at 2 hours each Officer de-escalation 62 employees at 2 hours each Officer situational awareness 40 employees at 2 hours each Officer force mitigation 64 employees at 2 hours each Officer communication and de-escalation 6 employees at 3 hours each Officer crisis negotiations 3 Employees at 16 hours each Officer crisis negotiations and less lethal force 39 employees at 2 hours each Officer use of force scenarios 40 employees at 2 hours each Officer crisis intervention 5 employees at 40 hours each Officer defensive tactics 53 employees at 2 hours each Officer communication and de-escalation 4 employees at 3 hours each Total hours: 1,455. Multiply times $40 per hour inclusive of benefits= $58,200 Thomas P. Miller and Associates contract was at least $25,000. ($75,000 was appropriated.) The anti-discrimination course was $53,745 Cost to join the Alliance on Race and Equity was $1,000 Cost to review language and images used for advertising positions was $20,000 Cost for the assistant city manager’s time and the community engagement coordinator’s time is not reflected in the direct training costs above. Estimate at least $25,000. Possibly as much as $120,000. The underlined items total $182,945 for “equity work” done through May 2022. And since then, three Community Liasons have been hired to assist the community engagement coordinator in the work of “inclusion.” That’s easily another $120,000 per year. Look at the map of tribes in early 1800’s Montana on page…. How neatly those lines aredrawn. No incursions, no raids, no marauding, no opportunism. No band-treaty breaking. How innocent things were. Land was practically deeded, then usurped by “the others” from “the other” land mass. “Violent dispossession” is ascribed only to the “others” coming from Europe. But violent dispossession has a long history. Look at the 20 pages of recommendations. They mean forcing staff into further re-education sessions, DEI trainings that corporations often find to be a waste of time and money, andoften counterproductive. And the cost to taxpayers? We already spent $182,000 as of early2022 on staff time and consultants. How much more must we spend? At least Karl Marx only lumped people into one of two aggrieved classes, bourgeois orproletariat. “Belonging” compounds Marx, one-ups him, adding new groups which own resentment; minority races, women, disabled, sexual identity groups, and low-income,especially the race and gender categories. The document hints that our “origin story is preeminently one of racism and bigotry.”[i] It understates female earnings and positions in hierarchy. For example: HRDC 8 women, 3 men Community Health Partners 87 women, 13 men MSU-Bozeman Office of Diversity and Inclusion 4 women, 0 men Friends of the Bozeman Public Library 12 women, 3 men Bozeman Schools Foundation board and staff 12 women, 3 men Family Promise of Gallatin County 12 women, 3 men Humanities Montana 18 women, 7 men WWAMI medical school grads in 2023 22 women, 8 men WWAMI faculty 16 women, 9 men It sets up redistribution of income from accomplished persons to members of marginalizedgroups. It dictates rewards based on proportional representation, which falsely ends up over- representing the supposed “marginalized.” How do we know this? Because City policy in Resolution 5323 calls for it. Resolution 5323’s pledge to make board membership reflect “at the least, the demographicsof our community” raises an important question: Members of what categories will be givenhigher consideration? What categories will be reduced in representation? There is a majority race, and a majority sexual orientation. Does the “at the least” clause specify a diminishment of their membership in favor of minorities? This is a “marginalized” or “ally” test for appointment to boards. When you apply, you’re asked to prove fealty to DEI. “Belonging in Bozeman” would amplify such viewpointconformity, possibly extending its crush to the citizenry. Speaking of real religion, the drafters exclude, and in the process “other,” several religionswho’ve had a hard time gaining acceptance and suffered misunderstandings: Jews, Adventists,Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Plan verbiage on page 19 coins a new Orwell-ism: spiritual practice. That’s apparently new politi-speak for religion. Claims of exclusion and “othering” only apply to selected, favored marginalized groups listedin this Plan. Your/our consultant, The Morten Group, lists clients. Only one city is named: Chicago. Bozeman’s patronage seems to be an outlier. Morten’s marginalized-to-dominant group ratio is not representative. Its female/male ratio is also not representative. Expect hiring quotas (at the expense of men), brow-beating cultural indoctrination sessions, higher taxes, fewer services, reduced quality, and more, not less, resentment. Expect loweredstandards, double standards, and a brushing-aside of data. Either we believe in meritocracyand just desserts, or that rewards such as wealth, income, grades, and esteem should be distributed without merit. Quotas are explicitly exclusive; they don’t further “belonging.” The City owes us a full accounting of money spent on contracts, employee training time, and costs of employees hired for, and working in, DEI, and the costs of staff time in roundtables and discussions to do with DEI. It could easily run to $500,000 so far. We must compare thatwith the benefits, if any, of increased harmony. Please account for both sides of the ledgerand report. And please estimate the cost of each Plan recommendation. Critics of “Belonging in Bozeman” will be branded as crazy, worried about nothing. After all,the Plan aims to cultivate a friendly town. It’s not us opponents tilting at windmills, but the proponents. The words of prominent race-essentialists Ibrahim X. Kendi and Kehinde Andrewsreveal DEI’s revolutionary goal and methods. Kendi writes, “The only remedy to pastdiscrimination is present discrimination.” Andrews says the whole system in the West needs tobe overturned. “I mean simply revolution. This is a revolutionary argument. We need to overturn. You cannot just rely on these institutions because they are actually the problem. Youcan’t separate racism from capitalism, so we need to do something else. There is no othersolution than revolution.” Traditionally, the user pays for movie tickets, utilities, food, shelter, higher education, androads (through gas taxes). Under DEI, others pay if you can prove to the controllers yourmarginalized status. Thus is the freedom and responsibility inherent in capitalism struck down. What is left is the socialist system of rationing based on class status, resulting in penury andmalaise. All the incentives are wrong, out-of-sync with human nature. The main problem with this Plan is a loss of freedom. It sets up discriminatory quota systems,and entails big costs, both financial and culturally. It ignores its own findings and is thuscontradictory. It aggravates conflict rather than bringing about harmony. That’s amisrepresentation. Its basis is that an oppressors/oppressed binary explains our history and current differences. That theory is inauthentic. Setting people against each other and blaminggroups is not the way to unity. Bitterness is no way to live, personally or societally. The American concept is self-governance. I vote no. When we must, we substituterepresentative government. I ask you to vote no. Let’s try gratitude instead. Thank you, Tom Tom Burnett 406-539-7075 Each American’s share of the $165 trillion fiscal gap is $500,000. John Goodman, New Way to Care, page 288.(The official debt is only $28 trillion of it.)The fiscal gap is the difference between government promises and expected revenues.