Focus groups made up of the following communities and areas of interest were held by the Unity Council :

• African American Community

• African and Caribbean Immigrant Community

• Asian American Community

• Christian Pastors

• Disabled Community

• Economic Disparities

• Education and Workforce Training

• Health and Wellness

• Housing

• Jewish Community

• Latinx Community

• LGBTQ + Community

• Arlington ’ s Youth

• Muslim Community

• Policing and Criminal Justice

• Vietnamese Community

30 one-on-one interviews were also conducted with key stakeholders and members of the Arlington community .

The one true source of a great city is its people . People are the lifeblood of our communities and our cities , and our capacity and will to welcome and engage this powerful human diversity defines our future . To value public participation is to welcome the full spectrum of human identity and respectfully engage people with different lived experiences , in service of a more inclusive vision and hopeful outcomes important to a cross section of the public . With this in mind the Unity Council early on envisioned a varied and robust plan for public participation .

In addition to the inspiring diversity of identity and perspective reflected in the Unity Council membership , the Unity Council ’ s Public Participation efforts included thirty one-on-one , in-depth interviews with key local residents ; four virtual Town Hall meetings broadcast from City Hall ; and fifteen focus groups that addressed various aspects of diversity

Unity Council Report

including race , ethnicity , religion , sexuality , differently-abled , and youth .

The primary intent of our public participation efforts was to engage a diversity of Arlington ’ s resident stakeholders , reflective of the city ’ s demographic make-up in service of relevant feedback . By listening to and capturing diverse perspectives on key questions we sought to encourage broad based ownership in the development of key recommendations and add faces , voices and stories to the critically important quantitative data .

Each of these important qualitative approaches — one on one interviews , town halls and focus groups contributed uniquely and significantly to the quality and range of feedback . Informed by an impressive assembly of guest speakers and content experts we carefully crafted questions for each of these approaches and collected written feedback .

Town halls during a pandemic

required careful planning , a demonstrable commitment to people ’ s health and safety , accessible technology with technical support and patience . The resulting virtual platform fit the bill and engaged members of the Arlington public whose voices and stories had not been heard .

In addition , Town halls provided a platform for key local leaders from collaborative organizations like the Arlington Chamber of Commerce and United Way of Metropolitan Tarrant County to speak of the importance and relevance of the Unity Council ’ s mission and the great shared work that was possible . Town halls also allowed the Unity Council Subcommittee Chairs to provide timely updates and discuss emerging draft recommendations to the public .

Focus Groups — a deeper dive into Public Participation

Typically a great source of energy and traction in public participation is participant interaction and

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