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we’re missing about a third of the human rights commission members tonight, but the meeting must go on.
peter krebs at public comment says a group he works with is planning way ahead for an ‘open streets’ event for next summer. a commission member asks how this event relates to human rights.
commission chair shantell says the way communities are laid out divides (and literally segregates) us & events like this can bring people together. taking to the streets is a right often denied to black & brown people who face disproportionate policing.
peter has asked the commission for a letter of support for the event. commission member kathryn laughon says their letter should specifically highlight the equity issues the event addresses.
commission member elliott brown asks peter if the group organizing the event is predominately white men. he hesitates. she asks if it’s diverse. (it is entirely white and he acknowledges that the final body that plans the actual event should be representative of the community)
the human rights commission voted to write a letter of support for the event with 8 yes votes, ann smith abstaining, and 5 unclaimed nametags on the table indicating absent members.
todd from the office of human rights provided an update about recent complaints. there were:
4 related to housing
1 re: public accommodation
of those 5 complaints, only one involved a complaintant of a protected class.
(i missed the timeframe here... did he say since april?)
4 related to housing
1 re: public accommodation
of those 5 complaints, only one involved a complaintant of a protected class.
(i missed the timeframe here... did he say since april?)
in that same timeframe there were ~190 other contacts that didn’t fall into a category. todd says much of that was followup from past/existing issues and those don’t get logged as new issues in this breakdown.
“sometimes people just find us [the office of human rights] a safe space to be,” todd says in response to questions about why so few of the contacts result in actual formal complaints.
commission member catherine spear is concerned that of 195 contacts in the month of april, only 5 of those people had complaints the office could formally log.
there seem to be issues here with not JUST the kinds of complaints the office can handle, but also in the way they are logging this data. i can’t tell if they are logging multiple “contacts” with the same person, but the “protected activity” issue just the first time?
todd says the office of human rights has several “active investigations” going on right now, all in the realm of public accommodation, but doesn’t provide additional detail about what they are or their status.
charlene green says there were two issues at the last city council meeting that may be of interest to the commission, starting with the west main street project & the fate of the lewis & clark statue
green says she’s still waiting to hear back from the city about next steps, but she expects some members of the human rights commission will be involved in the discussions about the statue that are to come.
the second recent council issue green brings to the meeting is the replacement of jefferson’s birthday with freedom and liberation day on the city calendar
mayor walker contacted green about both potential names for the new holiday and about gathering staff input about the change.
commission member ann smith says if we’re going to change the names of things related to thomas jefferson, why not look at the jefferson school, which is also named after him.
charlene green says the issue here is not changing the name of the holiday, but ceasing celebrating one holiday and adding a different one.
commission member susi wilbur says she’s lived here for 33 years and never even knew jefferson’s birthday was a city holiday. (i bet most people don’t! unless they tried to go to city hall on april 13th for some reason.)
charlene has put up a spreadsheet showing charlottesville’s score on HRC’s municipal equality index. the one i found online looks nothing like the one she’s projecting, so i’ll keep digging
assets2.hrc.org/files/assets/r…
assets2.hrc.org/files/assets/r…
also the HRC can fuck off. giving a city bonus queer points for having an LGBT community liaison at the police department? fucking spare me.
the city of charlottesville doesn’t even include LGBT status as a protected class. how can you with a straight face show me this A+ gay report card while that fact remains true.
commissioner elliott brown wants to note for the record that the LGBT community isn’t all on the same footing when it comes to equality - gay & lesbian people are more secure than trans people, on the whole.
correction: the city did write LGBT status into the human rights ordinance as a subset of “sex” (which IS a state-recognized protected class), but it’s meaningless until the state actually recognizes LGBT protections
lobbying for progressive change at the state level should be a bare minimum requirement of progressive local politicians in a dillon rule state. and yet...? 🦗🦗
an ad hoc committee of the human rights commission is looking at his based policing policy and hopes to be able to make some recommendations to chief brackney.
charlene green is careful to state on the record that the committee’s inability to meet with chief brackney so far isn’t because she doesn’t WANT TO meet with them about biased policing, it’s just a scheduling issue.
commission chair shantell says they don’t necessarily need to meet with the chief herself - some other member of the department familiar with department policy would suffice, particularly at this stage (just examining & understanding existing policies & procedures)
commissioner rob says an unnamed employee of the commonwealth’s attorney’s office shared their opinion with him that the understaffing of the police department makes them unwilling to enact discipline of any kind, particularly not firing officers.
🤦♀️ should say “bias based policing” whoops
commissioner olivia asks why they need a representative from the police department for their policy review meeting. catherine spear clarifies for charlene that just the ad hoc police policy committee wants to meet with a department liaison.
this is the third time tonight commissioner ann smith has directed comments to chair shantell, seated next to hear, in a very low, inaudible voice.
our human rights commission will host a convening of HRCs across the state this fall. they’ll discuss properly identifying and prosecuting hate crimes as well as gun safety legislation. shantell says they hope to invite state lawmakers @SallyLHudson and @pwcdanica
(for clarity, sally hudson will not yet have assumed office at that point, but there’s no one else in the running for that seat, so it’s close enough)
commission member olivia asks if they can get a FEPA agreement status update at the next meeting. she’s concerned about how the commission used their time tonight - much of the time was used discussing information that should have been sent out via email ahead of time.
things like extensive descriptions of upcoming unity days events may not be a good use of commissioners’ time - an event calendar can be sent to them before the meeting & maybe they could discuss anything that warrants discussion... but a lot of it didn’t.
and with that, meeting adjourned. with the exception of voting to endorse the open streets event raised by a member of the public during public comment... i don’t think any action was taken tonight? that can’t be right, can it?!
also, correction: NINE members of the commission (fully half of the members) were not present at tonight’s human rights commission meeting. i’ll have to check their bylaws, but quorum is usually half+1, right?
