The Town of Andover is committed to an ongoing dialogue and creating lasting change in battling the systemic racism that exists in our community. The next step in this continuing process is turning the discussion into action and developing ways to make racial equity and inclusion a core function of municipal government. Today I’m announcing the creation of a dedicated division of Town government that will focus on diversity and inclusion and work with all parts of town government and our community. The division will provide resources and will take dedicated, thoughtful actions and initiatives to promote goals we aspire to in our town. I look forward to a conversation with residents about how to make this new division the most effective it can be. I also look forward to our community forum on race and racism in Andover that will be taking place in July, a date for which is being finalized now and will be announced as soon as possible.
We have a lot of work to do. Conversations with our community members continue to be humbling and eye opening and I look at this past month as the start of a period of openness and honesty on the topics of racism, implicit bias and discrimination. As we all know, our community experienced an incident involving race several weeks ago that had no place in Andover. This incident is in the process of being addressed and our focus remains on what will result in the most acceptable outcome to the resident that was impacted.
Our work is just beginning and I understand that there are still many questions and that the community is eager for as much dialogue and information as possible. We look forward to hearing from the entire community as we work together to improve.
In advance of the community forum, we encourage residents to share their concerns, experiences and questions directly with us by emailing InclusiveAndover@andoverma.us