Election Day of the DeKalb consolidated election is April 6, and this year DeKalb has two candidates running for Mayor: Carolyn Morris and Cohen Barnes. With the election less than two weeks away, the Northern Star Editorial Board would like to offer a platform to the candidates to talk about their plans for diversity in DeKalb. 

After conducting research on each candidate, we noticed neither candidate has a stated plan or stance that involved improving the diversity within the city on a representation level. 

Our community is very diverse and its residents have been calling for the city’s representatives to take more action in regards to diversity in positions of power. Community members have often raised these concerns at town halls during the last year. 

Both of the candidates have addressed issues other than diversity. On their respective campaign websites, Barnes discusses economic vitality and Morris talks about investing in the community.

We believe Barnes and Morris have left out plans for increasing diversity. This is an important social issue we would love to discuss with them. 

That being said, the Editorial Board would like to call Morris and Barnes to sit down with us for a Zoom call or meeting. In doing so, we allow each candidate to inform us and the DeKalb community at large how they plan to help and amplify the diverse voices of this community. 

The Editorial Board would like to give the candidates the space to address anything they see fits in this topic. That could include plans about minority-owned business, leadership within DeKalb commerce, policing and anything beyond that.

We know diversity is of vital importance to the community, so it was disheartening to see the topic go unaddressed in the candidates’ campaigns. That is why we think it would be most beneficial to give Morris and Barnes a chance to do so through our platform ahead of Election Day. 

Cohen Barnes or Carolyn Morris, if you are interested in providing us with plans addressing diversity in the community and allowing us to educate our readers, please reach out to our editor email at [email protected]. 

We hope you take the opportunity to highlight your plans for serving our community.