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Lois Marks's avatar

It seems almost as if our City Government is looking for ways to assure we citizens that they are doing some righteous things, like removing restrictive racial discriminatory covenants in deeds. As you pointed out, this discrimination is already illegal, so this announcement would have a "feel good" result. As for Public Health 3.0, I think this is a totally wrongheaded use of taxpayer money to hire a Public Health Strategist to identify things that affect people's health decisions. Many of them are welll-known, and the money could be better spent alleviating some of these barriers to maintaining good health, such as decent, affordable housing and health care, family supporting jobs, etc. That's my view. We need concrete help for our friends and neighbors, not a foray into the realm of esoteric conjecture.

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Ursula Twombly's avatar

If renouncing restrictive covenants is purely a symbolic gesture then we missed a huge opportunity, as a community, to discuss the harm racial covenants, red lining, and bias in property assessment and loan approval have caused.

There is a connection, a linkage from the restrictive covenants to our current exclusionary zoning that artificially restricts housing choices, density and availability.

If we are serious about becoming a more inclusive, diverse community we need to understand our history in order to allow for a different future.

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