Referring to some policies as “whitewashed,” the mayor of Jamestown is looking to update a policy to make city government more inclusive.

Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist told The Post-Journal that he is looking to update the city’s Affirmative Action Policy that hasn’t been updated since 1984.

“At the time there were more minorities working for the city, and we have not done much since. We haven’t updated the policy. We haven’t looked to increase minority employees,” he said. “We did increase minority employees at the beginning of the year, two additional ones were added.”

Sundquist hopes the reintroduction of the Jamestown Commission on Human Rights will help make the city more inclusive.

“We’re going to make a bigger push to encourage more minorities to apply for civil service jobs,” he said.

In October 2019, the Jamestown City Council approved a resolution updating its Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement. However, Sundquist said city officials need to do more to recruit minorities to apply for government jobs.

“(The Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement) is a standard policy that is required by New York State Civil Service Law. It’s more about general compliance,” he said. “The Affirmative Action policy is meant to recruit minorities. Our Equal Employment Opportunity Policy is more about data collection and less about us going out and recruiting minorities. As a city, we need to do a better job recruiting and attracting minority candidates.”

Sundquist said the Jamestown Commission on Human Rights will assist city officials in being more diverse by making recommendations to the council and administrators. He said the commission’s other role will be to help city officials better understand the community by working to better understand the issues of race, nationality and religion.

In June, Sundquist announced the reintroduction of the Jamestown Commission on Human Rights. The commission’s purpose is to foster mutual respect and understanding among all racial, religious and nationality groups in the community; inquire into incidents of tension and conflict among or between various racial, religious and nationality groups, and to take such action as may be designed to alleviate such tension and conflict; conduct and recommend such educational programs as in its judgment will increase good will among inhabitants of the community; and open new opportunities into all phases of community life for all inhabitants.

So far, more than 80 people have submitted an application to be on the commission, Sundquist said. He said his goal is to select 12 candidates for the commission by the council’s July 27 voting session meeting. The mayor will select the candidates, but the council has final approval.

“We’re working to make sure we have the right 12 individuals to be on this public commission,” he said.