09-Paris Economic Development Corporation's Quarterly Report

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Paris, Texas Biversity Initiative Update June 2011 7'onight's Goals 1. Answer Questions 2. Provide Accurate Information 3. Move Forward Issue: Whv do we need to spend any money on a diversitv initiative? 1. Learn from other best practice communities. 2. Assess aNvide range of opinions and perspectives about our cunent situation. 3. Develop a focused implementation plan for the future. 4. Be proactive and change the perception and bad publicity we have received as a racist community. 5. Stop and counteract negative outsider influences tl-iat create conflict, strife and disagreements in Paris. 6. Show that we are not as we have been portrayed. 7. Create a business environment to attract new industry and jobs. 8. Show that our diversity is our strength and teach that to our youth. 9. Work together to understand our differences and make them our competitive advantage. 10. Help small businesses with training and tools that help them recruit and keep a diverse workforce. Purpose of the Diversity RFP I. Engage employers and community to be proactive and together on issues of race and diversity in Paris, Texas. 2 Conduct a 3rd party assessment (interviews, focus groups, surveys, forums, data gathenng). 3. ldentify and Showcase Best Practices We Can Learn From. 4. Provide Recommendations, Action Plans, Implementation Activities at a Leadership and Youth Summit. 5. Develop a Workplace Diversiry Toolkit and Training Program for Small Business. Issue: PEDC Stole Ken Rogers' Ideas. 1. PEDC engaged with the Diversity TaskForce and NAACP Leadership in response to the Turner Industries crisis in May 2010. We have been working with them since then. 2. PEDC's Plan of Work includes conducting both Diversity and Youth Summits. 3. The Diversity Taskforce supporis hiring a third-party consultant to develop a plan for the future. 4. PEDC staff prepared the scope of work for the RFP. 5. We used Google searches for "diversity summit," "diversity taskforce," etc., for ideas from other communities. 6. The RFP scope of work is not anybody's intellectual property. 7. The RFP includes language that the proposals and materials provided by Bidders in response to the RFP become property of the funding organizations. 8. The RFP gives PEDC the right to act in it's best interest at it's sole discretion. 9. How the individual companies deliver their services is their intellectual property - their "know-how" and their ide.as of "how-to" are uniquely theirs. We get the intellectual property of the company we hire. The RFP Process 1. WF Solutions and PEDC cooperated to ]everage resources and coordinate efforis. 2. Comrnittee Review of Written Proposals. 1 49