Municipal Equality Index (MEI)<\/a>. The MEI is a nationwide evaluation of 506 cities. It examines how inclusive municipal laws, policies and services are for members of the LGBTQ+ community. Each city is rated on 49 criteria, including non-discrimination laws, employment, and municipal services.<\/p>\nCities are ranked on a scale of 0-100. In 2018, Erie scored a fifty. However, since 2022, the city has earned a perfect score of 100.<\/p>\n
As Joe Schember’s time as Erie mayor comes to an end, he calls the score a proud accomplishment.<\/p>\n
“I think it means a lot to the city of Erie and everyone here,” said Mayor Schember. \u00a0“The more we can make people aware the happier I’ll be at least, and I think the happier everyone will be if they understand what we’ve achieved and how we’ve maintained that now for four years.”<\/p>\n
As for his plans after serving as mayor, Schember tells Erie News Now that he is going to relax with his family for the month of January.<\/p>\n
In February, Schember hopes to take on a new role in some capacity that will allow him to help the city of Erie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the fourth year in a row, the City of Erie has scored a perfect score on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137,23272,3177,24212,23270],"class_list":{"0":"post-40031","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-erie","8":"tag-erie","9":"tag-erie-headlines","10":"tag-erie-news","11":"tag-human-rights-campaign","12":"tag-joe-schember","13":"tag-lgbtq-community","14":"tag-municipal-equality-index"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}