The mission and core values of the City of Grand Junction are to continuously improve through teamwork and challenging the status quo. The City believes in collaborative partnerships, utilizing all areas of expertise to achieve common goals and providing exemplary service by thoughtfully interacting with the community to fulfill their needs. Working together and fulfilling the community's needs can only be achieved through a concerted effort to ensure all community members and visitors are included in all aspects of local government.
The City's Community Engagement Coordinator, Sandra Núñez Currier, facilitates services for diverse groups, such as the Spanish-speaking community, to ensure they have "a seat at the table" through civic engagement. Such engagement comes with accommodations such as interpretation, translation, and others. “We are here to encourage people and let them know we are here to serve them,” Núñez Currier said. “They are a part of this community and what goes on and what matters to them, matters to us.”
Núñez Currier understands what it’s like to be an immigrant and speak English as a second language. Born and raised in El Salvador, Central America, she moved to the United States when she was 15 years old and finished high school in Houston, TX. Following high school, she moved to Grand Junction in 2009 to study music education at Colorado Mesa University. She began working for the City of Grand Junction in 2021.
“A core part of my values is to help people,” she said. “I’ve always been very outgoing and focused on finding opportunities to serve the community.” Núñez Currier strives to create a seat at the table for all community members. “We want them to be a part of the conversation,” she said. In 2021, after extensive research on the best methods to serve our diverse community and hearing directly from members of such groups, the City of Grand Junction took the initiative to expand its Language Access Services.
"These service accommodations give independence to community members from all walks of life, so they can conduct business and access the services the City offers," she said. For people calling in who need language accommodations, the City offers Languagueline services at no cost to facilitate such interactions. "Our language service initiatives accommodate 240-plus languages, including American Sign Language," she said. In the Grand Junction area, Spanish is the second most spoken language. However, other languages, such as Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Portuguese, are also spoken. City Staff have been trained to access accommodations through technology like Languageline to address the needs of those who speak these languages. This allows them to quickly and easily connect with live video or phone interpreters whenever necessary, making communication much smoother. This also applies to the Police and Fire Departments, making the City’s accommodations available 24 hours a day.
"More than 50 percent of communications is non-verbal; therefore, having the option of a live on-demand video interpreter creates a much smoother interaction, reinforced by body language - it takes the conversation to a different level," Nuñez Currier said. The City's language accommodations also include translation (written content) to ensure documents are available for the community to participate from all angles of civic engagement. With both interpretation and translation accommodation demands, the City is creating a pool of interpreters who live in the community and contracting with them. Also, all translation is contracted with trained translators to ensure uniformity of content and style.
Recently, the Communications and Engagement Department has been working on adding Spanish signage at City Hall, with the goal of facilitating navigation at every city public building. This also goes hand in hand with adding events such as Café con Pan con El City Manager, where Spanish-speaking community members can complete the circle of civic engagement by talking directly to City leadership.
Another popular event has been "Paletas con La Alcaldesa," which the Mayor and the City Manager cohosted at a local popsicle shop called La Michoacana. "The event was such an enormous success that Spanish-speaking community members got to meet our City Manager and Mayor from a more personal level. It was a great way to grow trust," Núñez Currier said.
As the City of Grand Junction continues to expand language accommodations, community members have shown their gratitude, Núñez Currier said. “All of these services have been received very well and people are still saying ‘thank you.’”