Good Afternoon, Franklin County Local Officials. In an effort to streamline the FRCOG’s demand on your email box, we are combining two mailings in one this week. See below for a summary of each, and click on the links to review them. Please also read our statement on racial justice below.
NOTE: We have determined that correspondence we send via Constant Contact aren’t making it to everyone intended due to a Constant Contact policy wherein they won’t send emails to generic email addresses, such as townadministrator @town.ma.gov. Most people have another town email address that the generic address forwards to, such as trogers@town.ma.gov. Constant Contact will send to those addresses. If all else fails, we can send emails to a
personal account such as a Gmail account. If you received this email
second-hand, you have one of those generic email addresses, and you would like us to add a name-specific or Gmail address to our list, please let us know.
Read the MACC Common Operating Picture for COVID-19
This will be our last situation report until another surge of COVID cases occurs (which we hope, of course, will not be the case). From here on out, we will maintain the data dashboard using state data, but not issue any further reports. The Council of Governments will continue to issue newsletters for municipal leaders like the one below.
This week’s Municipal Leader COVID Update includes information on the reopening process, resources for businesses, public health messaging tools for boards of health, regional PPE purchases, and more.
The murder of George Floyd and resulting international protests highlight again the dire consequences of systemic racism and inequity in our society. We all must proactively work to right centuries of wrong. At the FRCOG, we are already involved in projects to improve racial equity. The Communities that Care Coalition, staffed by our Partnership for Youth, has a 5-year grant to address racial justice in our county’s school districts. Welcoming and Belonging Franklin County, in which we participate with the Franklin County Community Development Corporation and Greenfield Community College, among others, has received a grant to address racial equity and inclusion in our workplaces and community. The FRCOG's research conducted to produce last year's Community Health Needs Assessment identified troubling health disparities for people of color in our county. These inequities must be considered in all local and regional planning efforts moving forward. The Western Region Homeland Security Advisory Council’s Pan Flu Planning Subcommittee has acknowledged systemic racism as a public health issue, and has recognized that domestic terrorism afflicted upon black and brown people is a Homeland Security issue. The FRCOG also works closely with our county’s first responders, and we will collaborate with them to ensure greater racial equity in our region.
