Thread by @socialistdogmom

despite the flash flood warning, tonight’s joint session of charlottesville city council & the human rights commission is still on!
(i’ve seen pictures of some flooding in other parts of town, but i didn’t encounter any downtown. the albemarle county school board meeting is off.)

it looks like there’s only ONE actual member of the commission here?
charlene green (staff, not on the commission) from the office of human rights is addressing interim city manager mike murphy & councilors hill, signer, and galvin.
city attorney john blair is in the audience.

ann smith, the commission’s chair & the only member present tonight, is reading from a powerpoint about the role & history of the commission.
i’m unable to locate an agenda for tonight’s work session...

remembering now this presentation at an april city council meeting... the moral of the story seemed to be they are totally powerless and fundamentally useless?

https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/986046250205237248?s=21

there are currently 9 members of the commission. charlene says there should be at least 11, but it isn’t capped at 11. at some point there was a recommendation for 20 members, with a subcommittee model. again, i’m not sure they’ve ever actually helped anyone?

kathy asks “so how’s the work on the police department going?”
ann says “we’re really just getting started...” on bias-based policing

oh my god the extreme shade in bullet point number two

apparently someone appointed to the commission late last year has never come to a meeting & the other commissioners have never even met them.
heather is responding pretty hotly to the idea this is council’s fault.
SURPRISINGLY SPICY.

charlene & ann want council to appoint people who can attend thursday meetings. wes asks “how are we supposed to know that?”
kathy: “the onus is on the candidate to be responsible.”

heather says this isn’t exactly an uncommon problem — other commission’s have had absentee members. after three no-shows, they should notify council so they can take action. it sounds like this is the first council is hearing about this problem.

charlene says two other people are resigning - one for health reasons and one for personal reasons. “we’re missing at least one, if not two members at every meeting.”
(they are missing 8 members of their 9 member body tonight)

wes asks if it’s possible the lack of participation could due to a feeling that their recommendations aren’t taken? ann doesn’t answer this directly and instead explains that there are “age differences” on the commission. not sure what her point is here?

there seems to be a lot of deeply personal backstory here that i’m not privy to. some personal beef. ann is getting very defensive about commissioners “running to you [wes]” “because we [commissioners] may not always agree.”

i have just tuned into some kind of municipal soap opera, y’all.

kathy turning to the data: the city is hiring african americans in adequate numbers, but the data shows underrepresentation in supervisory positions & poor retention. more women than men apply, but more men are hired. asks if that kind of data can help shape the commission’s work

“i would say that it’s not about the data,” says commission chair ann smith. “it’s not about not having access to the data,” but about the commission being specifically asked to examine policy. (?? do their bylaws prevent them from taking any action without a specific complaint?)

ann: “we don’t want to replicate the work” being done by other boards, commissions, or even community-based groups. (so they aren’t doing anything?)
heather asks, point blank, “what output do you have?”

ann says given 2 month’s notice, the commission could present on any human rights issue the council is concerned about. heather asks for an example. charlene says “anything to do with housing,” which is a direct contradiction to earlier statements.

signer asks if the other 9 members of the commission were invited tonight. ann says they were, but “that number is now in the past,” with the two resignations.
heather pushes again, asking why they didn’t request more spots be filled in the last round of appointments.

heather says they’ve said they are “resource constrained,” asks why they didn’t ask for all 11 seats to be filled.
kathy cuts the exchange off: “we want more product. how do we help you provide that?”
heather/kathy doing bad cop/good cop tonight (and there are no good cops)

“this is certainly a very hot topic right now,” says heather, “there’s a lot of energy around this at our meetings.”

ann, again very defensively, says the commission is very young. (it’s been a few years at least, hasn’t it?)
“what we do here in charlottesville is not what any other commission does.” (ok but what is that?)

the commission was created in 2013. charlene green has been the manager of the office of human rights for three years next month.

“what’s the disconnect,” wes asks between the huge number of very engaged city residents who would be willing to step in & help on this issue and the lack of engagement the commission is getting. charlene says “give me an example.”

wes cites the work of @hatefreeacps — “why can’t we get some of them to participate in our subcommittees?” he names lisa woolfork & generally the community members who regularly attend council meetings. “how do we get them more engaged with the human rights commission?”

charlene says “the commission engages with issues covered by the ordinance,” and refers wes to the pamphlet he was provided.

wes isn’t deterred - he asks how the commission can work with CRHA on issues related to housing?
charlene: “if you’re just talking about outreach & getting the word out, that offer is extended to any group...”
“we do that sort of thing all the time.”

charlene: “we’ve never had anybody come to the office of human rights alleging an incident of discrimination related to credit.”
wes: “that’s part of it - why do we hear that & it’s not coming before the commission?”
mike murphy intervenes as it starts to get heated.

mike murphy suggests the commission take a look at a variety of community issues, have one or two commissioners take an issue & recruit community members. “not just one topic at a time” and “leverage the community resources.”

mike murphy: “i don’t know that a volunteer group is always going to be the most effective way” to do this work, that they need staff resources.

wes says he’d like to see more community engagement, “we need to look at this from a different model,” get on social media, attend other community & city meetings...

charlene says she wants to hear, but not right now, from wes about who he thinks their outreach is missing. she genuinely seems to believe what they are doing is working.

“they’re not going to the haven, they’re not going to CRHA, they’re not going to DSS the way they are coming to us...” charlene i feel like that is demonstrably untrue?

the city attorney is sitting in front of me searching twitter for the existence of social media accounts for human rights commissions in major cities around the country. looks like new york’s has one.

kathy & signer have both expressed concern that they need to leave soon. todd, an employee at the office of human rights, is now giving a presentation about what intake looks like at the office. it largely just means referring people someplace else, mostly the EEOC.

“in terms of formal investigations, we haven’t done a single one in the time i’ve been here,” says todd.
they refer housing complaints to PHA (though the ordinance allows them to investigate) and employment complaints to EEOC. they are basically an info desk?

no offense todd, but it sounds like we could replace your entire job with one page on a website with links to those other agencies.

todd says 5-7 people per day, on average, come into the office to ask a question (not all are complaints). signer asks if they keep data on these contacts - “we don’t want somebody sitting there without enough to do.”

jeff fogel just walked in, noticed the wrong people were at the table, and asked there the CRB meeting is. it’s at cityspace! i hope this nightmare ends soon so i don’t miss too much of that one.

they are struggling a bit with the issue of jurisdiction - employment complaints must be about employers located in the city. whether or not the complaining employee lives in the city is irrelevant. they can’t help city residents employed in the county.

signer asks if they’ve had complaints about gender discrimination. charlene says yes, they’ve had complaints from transgender people. mike starts to say “no, i just mean regular gender,” but catches himself 3/4 of the way through “regular.”
the city attorney cringed visibly.

“before we give them any more responsibility, i wanna make sure we have a group that’s functioning.” heather is NOT PLAYING AROUND tonight

kathy says that from personal experience, being forced to go to richmond to file a complaint about gender discrimination at work “stopped me dead in my tracks.” being able to handle this locally would encourage more people to pursue claims.

wes asks if the commission is “interested in” having any power, “having teeth.” charlene says “i need you to be specific about what you mean by that.” (it really sounds like they are not interested in being able to actually do anything.)

they start to adjourn the meeting, but city attorney john blair approaches the mic to ask if the commission has anything they’d like to submit for consideration for city council’s legislative packet. charlene is surprised - says she thought they’d missed the deadline.

then a statement was read re: city council’s recent closed session. the four still-present councilors (signer left ten minutes ago) voted to amend the minutes to reflect that signer called in to monday’s meeting. meeting adjourned!