Salinas community members and city staffers come together for training on governing with racial equity.

Maybe your Thanksgiving table is one that avoids difficult conversations about politics or race, and guests will steer clear of their opinions on the non-indictment of Darren Wilson, the Ferguson, Missouri police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown earlier this year. 

Or maybe not. What's long been true is that government doesn't have a clear, structured way to have this kind of conversation, but that's beginning to change in Salinas.

Last week, the National Compadres Network and Race Forward (The Center for Racial Justice Innovation) led a training for about 50 community members—selected mostly from nonprofits or grassroots activist groups—and about 50 city staff members. 

Their focus: Opening up a dialogue about racial equity and inequity, and launching an ongoing effort to improve equity in Salinas. 

"We expect that was learned there will be adopted and will really influence day-to-day operations of the city and community as a whole," Public Works Director Gary Petersen said at a press conference Tuesday recapping the week. 

The training was funded by the California Endowment, which also funds Building Healthy Communities, an effort across to improve health in 14 disparately unhealthful communities across the state, including East Salinas. 

It was the outcome of long-simmering tensions that became clear in the wake of four officer-involved shootings in Salinas this year, leaving four Latino men dead. 

Last week's initial training was mostly about laying out the issues of implicit racial bias, and acknowledging that even in a city required by law to offer equal opportunity, that doesn't always happen. 

A few examples: City meetings happen during the workday, excluding working families or people with non-flexible schedules; broken street lights in one neighborhood might be a nuisance, and a major safety problem in another, but that's not factored into the priority list; and getting permits to serve alcohol at special events in Oldtown might be easier than other parts of the city.

Carmel Gil, director of Building Health Communities in East Salinas, says they're planning more trainings for school board members, the media and elected City Council members.

Out of last week's group, a 10-person committee will be chosen (have city reps and half community reps) to keep the dialogue going. 

Elected officials and the media were deliberately not invited to the table last week, as the trainers aimed to offer up a space for honest conversation.  

"Cameras would shut people down," Gil said.

Besides, the hope is to launch an authentic process, instead of a one-off event. 

"It really was about healing more than anything," Gil said.  "Both sides got to see the realness of each other."

For Willow Aray, director of the Alisal Center on the Fine Arts, this is just the starting point. 

"The aha moment is that all of us are allies," Aray said, "instead of city vs. community. When we continue the conversations, we can get to know each other more and more."