ORLANDO, Fla. – Saturday’s 17th annual Neighborhood and Community Summit saw its biggest turnout yet, with about 400 participants slated to attend, said City of Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer.
“It’s an opportunity to bring neighborhood leaders, community leaders, faith leaders all together – and it’s nice to be in person,” Dyer said. “We’ve had to do this virtually the last couple of years.”
The mayor’s annual summit, held this year at Universal Orlando’s Loews Royal Pacific Resort, featured a dozen different workshops, focused on topics ranging from how to be an informed voter to the state of LGBTQ inclusion in the City Beautiful.
On that latter topic, Dyer didn’t mince words when he critiqued the controversial Parental Rights in Education bill Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law earlier this week. The legislation prohibits discussions of gender identity and sexual orientation in Florida public schools.
“Obviously, there’s been an attack at the state level on our LGBTQ community,” Dyer said. “We want to make sure that we’re as supportive as we possibly can be.”
Dyer elaborated on some of the city’s efforts in that regard, saying: “We, for instance recognize LGBTQ businesses, and support them, and help them figure out how to get through the red tape of whatever there is in opening a business.”
Another workshop at Saturday’s event featured Merchon Green, the city’s first Equity Official. It’s a position focused on identifying and eliminating systemic inequities across city government.
“As we looked at our progress in terms of equity and inclusion in the city of Orlando, we thought it was important to have somebody who every day focuses on that specific area,” Dyer said. “It cuts across every department in the city of Orlando.”
Green was brought on staff following protests over George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer in summer 2020. She says she’s focused on examining ways to improve internal policies as well as amplifying the city’s outreach methods, to engage a broader range of citizens.
“Right now we're trying to increase the standard of the diversity for our boards, [to] ensure that our boards basically have the same makeup as our community,” Green said.
She says citizens can get directly involved in guiding the city’s future policies by joining one of Orlando’s 25 or so advisory boards. There are currently several vacancies on different boards, including 2-3 open spots on the city's Citizen Review Board: an independent oversight committee of the Orlando Police Department’s internal affairs.
“Once we have diversity on our boards, then we can have a more accurate depiction of who we are as a city,” Green said. “The diverse perspectives on those boards will drive the policy internally.”
Green says her community organizing background taught her, it takes extra work to reach some demographics who may not be as engaged in city affairs: particularly folks without as much access to or knowledge of technology, like seniors or low-income community members.
“It’s not just unique to the city of Orlando, it’s government across the board,” Green said. “There’s a specific demographic that usually doesn’t have that interaction with government, and so their feedback is not actually getting to government.”
Green says to solve that problem, the city’s prioritizing more outreach – including more “unorthodox” methods, like door knocking, texting and calling Orlando citizens directly to get their input.
“It’s more time-consuming, but it will ensure that we do make that connection,” Green said. “That initial connection is always hard, so we’re looking to increase that.”
If you’re interested in learning more about applying to one of Orlando’s advisory boards, you can click here to go to the city website.