Members of Charlottesville City Council voted yesterday to create a Council-appointed human rights task force to review the proposed Charlottesville human rights commission and report their findings to the Council in 10 months.
Most Council members have voiced support for the creation of a human rights commission, which would aim to address discrimination complaints in the City.
Mayor Satyendra Huja, Vice Mayor Kristin Szakos, Council member Kathy Galvin and Council member Dede Smith each voted in favor of City Manager Maurice Jones' recommendation to review the human rights commission before creating it, while Council member and former mayor Dave Norris wanted more immediate action.
Huja said the commission would work with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to educate the public about discrimination and mediate discussions about discrimination complaints in the workplace and housing market.
Some members of the Dialogue on Race, a city-backed grassroots initiative to discuss and suggest solutions for race relations problems in Charlottesville, the Legal Aid Justice Center and Virginia Organizing called for the creation of an active anti-discrimination commission and commission director this fiscal year to break what Dialogue on Race leader Walt Heinecke called its 25-year cycle of study groups and initiatives.
"We determined that folks around town wanted [a commission] with some enforcement teeth," Heinecke said.
Szakos said her time as a board member for the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People showed her that Charlottesville needs a human rights commission to deal with discrimination issues.
At the meeting, Szakos successfully encouraged Council members to move the task force's timeline up by two months from the original 12-month timetable proposed by Jones.
Szakos said she hopes the Council will continue to discuss the commission, but she wants the City to begin addressing discrimination immediately.
"What I would like to do during this particular year, partly due to our budget situation ... is to form a commission ... and commit ourselves to the process," Szakos said before the Council meeting. "I would like to see us accepting reports [about discrimination complaints] right away."
Other local citizens and some members of the Dialogue on Race spoke out in support of the City Manager's plan.
"We all want to identify problems and propose solutions," Bob Gross, co-chair of the Dialogue on Race Steering Committee, said, speaking in favor of Jones' plan. "We are also convinced that this matter must be addressed in a responsible manner. We want solid and sustainable long-term results."
Some Charlottesville residents felt the decision to postpone the creation of the human rights commission perpetuates the ineffective cycle of studying problems rather than reacting to them.
"We urge you to enact an ordinance now," Abigail Turner, who spoke on behalf of Legal Aid, said at the City Council meeting. "The Dialogue on Race study groups [were a broad-based process]. An entity to permanently address issues of discrimination ... got many votes [in a Dialogue on Race meeting]."
Heinecke said the local commission would use Prince William County's commission as a model, which focuses on assisting people who "feel their rights are being violated in the areas of employment, fair housing, credit, education and public accommodation," according to the Prince William County website.
Huja said he wants the commission to focus primarily on education, using a similar task force in Virginia Beach as the basis of the group.
Heinecke, however, said using the Virginia Beach commission as a model would not result in anything different from the current Dialogue on Race, as it lacks enforcement power. He wants the new commission to use the Prince William County model, which he said would be a more aggressive way of combatting prejudice.
Heinecke said he hoped the commission would continue the work of the Dialogue on Race by conducting study circles and forums, reporting issues related to housing, private employees and City employees to the Council.
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