Nine months after its first meeting, Signal Hill’s Diversity Coalition Committee (DCC) is making progress, City Manager Hannah Shin-Heydorn told its volunteer members on Wednesday, Sept. 8.
One long-planned DCC initiative is soon materializing: a community survey scheduled to roll out by early December, Shin-Heydorn confirmed. The survey will be released after the City vets a consulting firm and determines survey questions with DCC input. The City Council had budgeted funds for the survey in June.
“This is a process that we’re going through,” Shin-Heydorn said. “It’s not always going to be clean and easy and fast.”
The survey’s purpose is to assess Signal Hill residents’ and business owners’ perceptions of diversity, racism and equity in the city. The DCC intends to use those results to further examine municipal processes—such as hiring practices and police training—and facilitate community events and education.
The DCC had wanted the surveying company to solicit feedback from all of Signal Hill’s more than 12,000 residents. However, Shin-Heydorn said most firms gather 300 to 400 surveys for a city of Signal Hill’s size to arrive at statistically valid results.
“I clarified with them that it’s not that you have to actually talk to every single person, but every single person should have the opportunity to participate and give their feedback,” she said.
Besides updating the DCC on the survey, Shin-Heydorn assured the committee it is meeting its intended goals as defined by the city’s Race and Equity Framework that the council adopted last year following its discussions of racism sparked by the Black Lives Matter movement.
The council created and charged the DCC to assist in three main areas, Shin-Heydorn said. One is reviewing Signal Hill Police Department (SHPD) practices—including hiring, training and use-of-force policies—as well as examining other municipal hiring and training practices for biases. A third expectation is engaging with and listening to the community, such as through the planned survey.
But Shin-Heydorn stressed that the council’s expectations for the DCC are fluid and dynamic and will continue to evolve as they learn together.
“Nobody is an expert,” Shin-Heydorn said. “We’re trying to do the best we can with the resources that we have.”
In addition to initiating the survey to help achieve its goals, the DCC has invited SHPD members to its past few monthly meetings to share about police programs, hiring policies and training practices, as well as how it responds to violators.
For some in Signal Hill, SHPD still operates under a cloud of suspicion about how it has historically treated people of color, most notably Cal State Long Beach football player Ron Settles, who died while in police custody in June 1981.
SHPD Police Chief Christopher Nunley told the DCC in July that the department has received 18 complaints about police behavior in the past 30 months, all having to do with “rudeness or unprofessionalism.” Of those complaints, only four were “sustained” as valid.
Though a SHPD officer fired shots in 2012—the only shot-firing incident in 20 years—it didn’t result in loss of life, Nunley said. But he shared statistics showing that out of 33 SHPD use-of-force incidents in the past 30 months, nearly three-fourths were against people of color.
And though nearly half of SHPD’s 46 employees identify as Hispanic, 9% as Asian or Pacific Islander and 4% as Black, no people of color serve in SHPD upper management, Nunley said. He added that SHPD is currently training such officers for supervisory roles.
Shin-Heydorn suggested that such inclusiveness was behind the City Council’s decision to create the DCC.
“How can we do a better job making sure all voices are heard, making sure there’s seats at the table for everyone?” Shin-Heydorn recalled the council asking.
The council decided to let all 22 residents who wanted to participate join the DCC to represent the unique needs and perspectives of Signal Hill, as opposed to those of the larger surrounding city of Long Beach, Shin-Heydorn said.
She said the DCC has already caused City staff and the City Council to have important conversations about budget allocations, but the committee has to be patient with the process. Though now down to 15 members, they are representative ambassadors of the community and helping the City determine affordable and realistic steps to improve, she added.
“Keep doing what you’re doing,” Shin-Heydorn said. “This is all productive, and this is all working toward something.”
Correction: Sept. 10, A previous version of this story stated that the Signal Hill Police Department had 18 use-of-force incidents in 18 months. The department has had 18 use-of-force incidents in the past 30 months. The Signal Tribune regrets this error.
