Human Rights Commission

City of Morgantown Human Rights Commission Meeting Minutes for June 20, 2019 Present: Jan Derry, Chair Kristen Cooper, Secretary Drew Bucy Jacob Powers Jena Martin Don Spencer (Program Assistant) Judith Wilkinson (Volunteer) Kristen Jones (Volunteer) Meeting called to order by Jan Derry, Chair, at 6:34 PM. The agenda was distributed and approved with no changes. Public Session: No one from the public was present at the meeting. Minutes: Copies of the April 2019 minutes and May 2019 were distribution. One change was made to the April Minutes in regards to Jacob Powers volunteering to serve as Chair after July 1. Jena Martin moved that the minutes be approved with the change; Drew Bucy seconded the motion. The minutes where approved unanimously. No changes were noted for the May minutes. Jacob Powers moved that the minutes be approved as written; Jena Martin seconded the motion. The minutes were approved unanimously. Communications: Tim Hairston, representative from the State HRC, reported that Ronald L. Jones has been named as the new Executive Director of the State HRC. The next meeting of the State HRC will take place next Thursday. Tim will have more to report next month. Several issues were addressed at the June 18th City Council meeting. According to Jan Derry, Paul Brake, the City Manager, arranged for 3 of the HRC’s resolutions to be discussed by the City Council at that meeting. In Paul Brake’s absence, Chris Fletcher spoke in support of each of the resolutions and tied them together with the DEI initiative which will be coming up for review in August. Don Spencer, Judith Wilkinson and Don Spencer presented 1) the minority advisory council, 2) the Open to All program, and 3) the Anti-Bullying resolutions at the meeting. The City Council had some questions about who will 1 appoint members to the Minority Council, and it was decided that members would be affirmed by the HRC, but the various minority entities would be responsible for putting forth their selected representative for affirmation. A meeting with the City Attorney took place so that the Anti-Bullying ordinance would be written in the correct language per the City code. The City Council’s Committee of the Whole will take place on August 27th and commissioners and volunteers were urged to attend to show support. In regards to social media, Jacob Powers reported that his efforts to share information via the Facebook page are ongoing. Jan Derry suggested we consider putting the money in our budget towards getting more views. With the end of the fiscal year coming up, Jan Derry requested that anyone with receipts for reimbursement turn-in those receipts before June 30th. Priority Items: Regarding the human rights ordinance complaint sent to the HRC in May, both Jan Derry and Jacob Powers reached out to the complainant but received no response. Jan Derry acknowledged that both the complainant as well as the business sited in the complaint are both outside of the city limits and therefore out of our jurisdiction. Jena Martin suggested that we establish steps for future complaints regarding whether to investigate if it is out of our jurisdiction, or if to determine it is out of our jurisdiction and therefore not investigate. Jena will look at the protocol and make a suggestion for the future. For the complaint at hand, Jan Derry took over the investigation after Jacob Powers heard from the complainant via Facebook. After the May HRC meeting, the actual complaint was missing for several weeks. Subsequently Jan talked to the complainant and sent her an email to update the complainant on the status. Jan will put a copy of the email with the complaint. If she does not get a response to the email, Jan will print out the email and mail it to the complainant along with alternative resources that may be explored to resolve the issue. It was noted that the original complaint letter was in the possession of the City Clerk for several weeks before it was given to the HRC. Jan will notify the City Clerk that the HRC needs to be informed of registered letters/complaints upon their receipt. The Municipal Equality Index is due on July 31st. Don Spencer, Kristen Cooper and Kristen Jones have been gathering information for submission. The group will meet in early July to finalize the report. During her research of Open to All, Jan Derry discovered that the program did not originate in the City of Huntington, but is instead a national program that is copyrighted, with many materials available as well as national sponsors such as Yelp! The Commission needs to rethink its approach to initiating the program in Morgantown. Jacob Powers volunteered to research the national program further and talk to their representatives about how Morgantown can best go about executing a campaign. Jan Derry will talk to the City Attorney and let him know that the program is national in nature. When we receive more information, Eve Faulkes will be notified about our ability to use the logo she designed. 2 A discussion took place regarding which organizations should be included in the solicitation of members for the Minority Advisory Council. Among the organizations mentioned were the NAACP, the Muslim community, disability organizations, synagogues, the Hindu community and others. New Business: New officers for the HRC need to be determined at the July meeting. In lieu of a nominating committee, Kristen Cooper will contact Jena Martin and Kate Levine-Freedman to see if either is interested in being nominated to take the Vice Chair position. The HRC Internal Operating Procedures were reviewed. It was determined that the Procedures be adopted as by-laws. Jacob Powers moved to adopt the Procedures as by-laws; Drew Bucy seconded the motion. The motion was accepted unanimously. Jan Derry, Jacob Powers and possibly Jena Martin will be on a committee to review the by-laws. The Morgantown Housing Fair will take place on July 14th. The HRC will have a table at the event -- Jacob Powers volunteered to man the table with Jan Derry possibly helping him. Don Spencer initiated a second discussion of the Open to All project. He recommended that volunteers go door to door at the downtown businesses in July. It was noted that once we find out more from the national organization we can put together an action group that will create a script for the volunteers. It was suggested that the program may need to happen in the fall. The City Manager has asked that the HRC think of ways to get greater participation in the upcoming national census. The results of the census will determine if the state retains its congressional representative seats as well as current and future funding. Jacob Powers suggested that we share the importance of the census via social media and via email to other city organizations. Kristen Cooper will send Jacob the current organization list with Jacob. Ongoing Projects: Kristen Cooper will create a list of names of those who have volunteered to work on the projects on the HRC’s status list. She will review past minutes and email members to compile the information and add it to the spreadsheet that Don Spencer created. Announcements: Don Spencer recently attended an event that focused on refugees and how cities are handling the issue. He also viewed a film entitled, “The Last Refugee.” He reported that many cities are well equipped to handle refugees. Also, there was a show on CNN about cities open to refugees and about the potential for their success. 3 The Welcome Banners were discussed. The HRC has $1000 in our budget for banners. Good locations for the banners (such as the WVU Welcome Center) were suggested. The next meeting of the Human Rights Commission will take place on July 18th, 2019. The meeting was adjourned at 8:30 pm. Submitted by Kristen Cooper 4