Jennifer De La Jara
What steps will you take (or have you taken) to ensure LGBTQ+ people who live in, work in, or visit Mecklenburg are protected against discrimination? What steps do you support (or have you done) to protect equitable access to healthcare for all people, including Transgender people? Do you support expanding the "Getting to Zero" Campaign for Mecklenburg County?
I will support banning discrimination in public accommodations and, as Mecklenburg’s next County Commissioner, I will lead the charge in expanding access to the board and building our coalition with the LGBTQ+ community. I also support a municipal ban on conversion therapy where county funds apply and in compliance with not only state law, but guidance from the Board’s General Counsel. I am also proud to say that I stood alongside the LGBTQ Dems and Equality NC this past summer at three (3) rallies outside the government center in order to secure the passage of the NDO at the City and County levels.
I am in full support of the "Getting to Zero" Campaign here in Mecklenburg County. The Department of Public Health is housed under the County but I also believe we should engage in partnership with the school board, town councils and the City of Charlotte. We can reduce stigma, expand access to care and increase the quality of life for our residents by implementing commonsense programs and initiatives like Getting to Zero.
What will you do (or have you done) to maintain equitable access to green spaces and parks in Mecklenburg County? What plans do you have to ensure affordable housing to Mecklenburg County residents?
Right now, Wake County leads the state and in some cases, the nation, in green acreage per-resident. They lead in parks, greenways and in investment. To be clear, in some cases, the creation of a park and access to a park have been strongly impacted by class. Mecklenburg County can restore equity by leaning into the work of the Parks and Recreation Board. I believe our county should seek and expand opportunities to get residents outdoors and exercise more. Keep in mind also that access to quality parks and less exposure to fine particulate matter, which is often the case in the crescent, directly impacts children in our community. Black children with asthma living in the crescent spend four times more time out of school than white children with asthma living in the wedge. This produces inequitable outcomes in our schools so I will fight for equitable parks and environmental justice so that all of our children have access to more school time which translates to greater performance and better outcomes.
Affordable housing should be available in every corner of Mecklenburg County, including "The Wedge". When our neighbors can count on safe and affordable high-quality housing, Mecklenburg County can truly succeed. The brain power within the government center combined with the brainpower of community leaders and housing advocates, we can realize true policy reforms and expand access to housing and even increase home ownership. I am proud that although no school board member was invited to the County/Center City Partners’ workgroups around housing, that I took the lead and pushed into some of the meetings nonetheless. My presence brought to the forefront of the conversation that 3,000 of CMS’s students are housing insecure. My presence got the group to consider language access when speaking about equity.
I also just returned from the Alliance’s trip to Austin, Texas where I attended the breakout session around affordability. I think we need to learn from what other communities have done well and also learn from their mistakes. Keep in mind that our ability to diversify our community’s housing has a direct impact on the school system’s ability to diversify the socio-economic status (SES) composition of the schools. In short, our schools are segregated because our neighborhoods are segregated. We need to work collaboratively across all areas of our government to address these issues with zoning, intentional planning, and to build schools. I will be that collaborative voice that lifts up our interconnectedness.
What actions do you support (or have you supported) to ensure people have equitable access (including transportation and housing) to jobs that provide a living wage, including supporting minority-owned businesses? How are you addressing the Leandro ruling to ensure equitable access to education?
A leader cannot support equitable access to transportation without supporting CATS. I support a robust transportation system and I also understand the dynamics of "mass transit" in" Charlotte-Mecklenburg. I support a CATS program that includes rapid electric charging stations for cars, bikes, scooters, and skateboards. I also support rapid buses, light rail and commuter rail, tunnels and bridges. The main goal is to not only reduce our carbon footprint but also reduce the amount of vehicles on the road and not price out our residents in the process. The cost of car ownership is also increasing so supporting transportation and housing that supports our county’s residents is an economic mobility issue, which is one of my campaign’s top priorities.
We can better support Minority and Women-owned businesses through community and government programming, education on bidding processes, direct cash support either by grant or forgivable loan. I am proud of the model that CMS has used to support MWSBE businesses and I plan to share those best practices with the BOCC once elected.
The Leandro case should speak to the heart and soul of this state. North Carolina once led the way in public education. As an At-Large member of the school board, I successfully fought against cuts to classroom support services and unnecessary cuts to public education overall. I also have lobbied the General Assembly to fully fund education and restore their cuts from bad policy over the last decade. As your next County Commissioner, I will work with my colleagues to ensure the county is stepping in whenever our schools need it, and I will stand alongside our Democrats in Raleigh who are fighting for Leandro funding like I did last summer when Representative Hunt called a press conference. Many County Commissioners did not attend the conference, presumably because they had just voted a few weeks prior on June 1, 2021 to cut $81M from CMS’s budget request and notated on their press release that the $56M they were putting in a contingency fund (not an appropriation) would not “impact the classroom”. I want to be very clear: education funding always directly impacts the classroom. As your next County Commissioner, I will work hard to help my colleagues understand how devastating funding cuts actually are, and I will rally with my colleagues in the Mecklenburg Delegation to the NCGA to make sure we are all standing together on this basic North Carolina value. I am glad that the Commissioners came around in November to pass their Leandro resolution because I believe my advocacy helped move them in that direction.
With racism being declared a public health crisis, what steps do you support (or have you supported) to address the racial inequities that exist in Mecklenburg County? These include but are not limited to environmental racism, overpolicing, and healthcare access.
As a school board member, it was critically important that our kids remain safe and so we stopped the over policing within CMS and added in alternative programs for students dealing with behavior issues centered around restorative justice. We also added a curriculum that is culturally relevant and we provide professional development to teachers and staff so they teach the content with the intention it was created. I regularly speak out against racism and bigotry. In fact, I have been invited to an AAPI event this coming Saturday where I will share my views on hate speech and share CMS’s message regarding Anti-Asian hate speech and bullying we put out last year.
I am also proud of fighting for equity in our funding this past year. The state does not fund the schools through an equity lens - meaning they only fund based off of enrollment numbers - an equal quantity of teacher and staff per school. It’s with County funds that we are able to provide extra social workers, extra bilingual staff, extra talent development teachers, etc. based on what the school’s need based on the composition of the schools. That is the very definition of equity.
I am proud that after the $81M vote that took place on June 1 last year that I helped lead the fight to secure those funds so that we did not have to cut the very positions that allow the school system to provide equitable resources. As your next County Commissioner, I will make sure that doesn’t happen again. We must govern based on the impact of our votes, not based on misinformation and misunderstandings.
Our County has a long history of racism as laid out in the latest Equity Report. CMS has done its part to fight for equity including our vote to sale the Morgan school instead of leasing it, giving the legacy community an opportunity to buy the building. It’s now time for Mecklenburg County to make equity investments and reparations in the same fashion and I look forward to joining my colleagues to make the right decisions.
We also fought for and secured nurses for schools which helped close the equity gap on healthcare access within CMS. It is often the case that a child's first exposure to a nurse, therapist or social worker happens within our schools. These are critical positions that the county often funds. I’m glad I will be there to keep these programs alive as I can speak to the critical nature and continued need. It is important that we protect those wrap around services for our kids to not improve their outcomes but our communities as well. I already mentioned my environmental justice concerns above in question one, and I have laid out more detailed plans on my website around environmental justice and quality parks and recreation programming that needs to be viewed through a racial equity lens.
We need more public servants who will look at the policy decisions and bring an equity scope to not only analyze the problems facing our community but ensure the solution reaches the people.
Thanks for sharing your vision of how to make Mecklenburg a more equitable, inclusive place! Are there any additional comments or initiatives you'd like to share?
I want to touch just for a moment more on upward mobility. When I was an Instructor for CPCC, I saw firsthand the impact the initiatives I worked on with immigrant and refugee communities made. CPCC also had similar programs for native English speakers who needed to prepare for the GED. I think we need to be creative in how we approach skills development and workforce development for our county. I have already engaged in conversations with folks from Charlotte Works and Goodwill about ideas I have to get their feedback. Mostly, I think what the BOCC needs is fresh ideas and collaboration across all sectors of our community in order to bring quality initiatives to fruition. I am the leader who will help make that happen.