Diversity Initiative seeks more funding
Three-person staff covering 6 million acres
Budget negotiations for 2022 are under way and within Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposal is additional funding for the Adirondack Diversity Initiative. Its executive director, however, wants more.
Police reform, diversity and inclusion training, educational seminars, organizational audits, immersion programs between schools and more are on ADI’S docket this year.
Nicole Hylton-patterson has been in her executive director role for just over a year spearheading the initiative through a $250,000 grant from the state Environmental Protection Fund. But with one other full-time staff member and a part-time assistant, the work capacity is a challenge.
“I can’t do this alone,” Hylton-patterson said in a recent phone interview. “I need a robust staff to do work over 6-point-something million acres.”
It appears Cuomo and state legislators plan to renew $250,000 for 2022, but Hylton-patterson would like to double that. The state is facing a nearly $15 billion deficit — the biggest in its history — but the executive director is hoping federal funding comes through and her request will be granted, she said.
Last month Cuomo presented two budget proposals, one anticipating more aid from the federal government, and one anticipating less.
In the worst-case scenario, Cuomo said, to make up the gap “would require everything that you could do. You’d need to raise revenue, cut expenses and borrow funding.”
“It would hurt New York dramatically,” the governor had said.
State Sen. Dan Stec, R-queensbury, wasn’t keen that ADI would get more funding, based on the state’s multibillion, multiyear deficit and the funding needed to address the coronavirus pandemic.
“I think if ADI is in the final budget at their current level of funding, they will be doing better than many others,” Stec said in an email. “This has nothing to do with merit or value but just financial reality.”
ADI was created with a mission to make the Adirondack Park more welcoming and inclusive. In May 2019, the state budgeted $250,000 and Hyltonpatterson, who was born in Jamaica and hailed from the Bronx, moved to the North Country to be the organization’s first executive director. Work picked up for Hylton-patterson after people across the nation watched video of George Floyd’s death in police custody in Minnesota. The image of a Black man struggling under an officer’s knee before dying precipitated protests across the country and calls for police reform. Hyltonpatterson said she had over 100 requests from businesses, organizations and municipalities across the Adirondacks for her cultural competency training.
“Her work probably quadrupled, quintupled, in terms of demand on her, part-time staff and media support,” said Kate Fish, executive director of the Adirondack North Country Association and a member of ADI’S core team of volunteers. “But what’s been really gratifying to me, to us, to the core team, is how quickly so many people in the region have rallied around the importance of this work.”
That work will expand this year. ADI is preparing to launch a community policing initiative aimed at strengthening the relationships between law enforcement and local communities. The focus will be on “eliminating racial disparities that disproportionately harm Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) and other marginalized residents and visitors,” according to a planning document.
Hylton-patterson said the policing initiative ties in with Cuomo’s executive order on police reform and reinvention. The idea is to pair local law enforcement with policing liaisons to
help them address underlying problems in communities. State Police in the Adirondacks have already signed on to the program, Hylton-patterson said.
ADI has contracted with RENZ Consulting, a firm that specializes in policecommunity relations. The firm was founded by Lorenzo Boyd, a former law enforcement officer, current professor and nationally known consultant on police and community relations and criminal justice.
Hylton-patterson said ADI has fundraised to support the work, and the training will involve reviewing hiring practices, reviewing opportunities for diversifying staff, providing cultural consciousness trainings, cultural sensitivity trainings and real-time advice.
This work bounces off of ADI’S “Driving While Black” webinar series in 2020. During some of those
sessions, Black residents shared their experiences living in the Adirondacks.
One man described a time when a police officer pulled a gun on him while he was working, wearing a company uniform and driving a company truck. Hylton-patterson has also experienced racism here in the Adirondacks. On her regular running route, teens had vandalized a bridge in Saranac Lake with racial slurs.
The subsequent delayed reactions from the community had struck Hyltonpatterson. Eventually, the Village of Saranac Lake posted banners downtown that read, “Racism is a public health crisis.”
Fish has seen the Adirondack Park community shift to realizing not only the moral implications of becoming a more diverse and inclusive place, but also the risks to its economy.
“I think the economic future of the region is in jeopardy,” Fish said, if the Adirondacks doesn’t broaden its reach and inclusivity.
ADI is also working with
state agencies, including the Department of Environmental Conservation, on how they can diversify staff.
This year ADI has plans to pilot a new program with the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry to create a school pipeline to the state’s forest ranger academy and other outdoors and environmental careers. Hyltonpatterson said it is part of an overall initiative called the “Young Adirondack Stewards Program.”
Students from the New York City area, from kindergarten up to 12th grade, will be making field trips to the North Country to learn about the Adirondacks and the career opportunities available.
ADI’S second full-time staff member, David Yisrael Epstein Halevi, is working with area colleges on creating a social justice minor that will be a requirement for interns of ADI.