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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes Human Relations Commission - 02/07/2002 CORRECTED SUMMARY MINUTES—QUORUM MEETING HUMAN RELATIONS COMMISSION MEETING February 7,2002 Commissioners-Present Commissioners-Absent Chairperson:Mr.Oscar Hinojosa, Sr. Vacancy(Sandra Terrell-Davis) Ms.Laura Aguinaga. Vacancy(JoAnn Kernick) Dr. Stuart Elovitz Vice Chair:Dr. Sylvester Peterson Mr.Daniel Gonzales Ms.Betty Black Mr.Richard"Dik"Johnson Mr. Joey Maldonado Ms. Wendy Lai Ms. Crystal Lyons Ms.Amy Rhoads Ms. Stephanie Saenz Mr.Errol Summerlin Ms.Nancy Vera Staff—Present HRC Legal Advisor—Absent L.David Ramos Mr. Joseph Harney June Shultz The Human Relations Commission held its Regular Monthly Meeting on February 7, 2002 at 5:00 p.m., in City Hall, 1201 Leopard St., Council Chambers, Corpus Christi, Texas. This meeting was a quorum meeting. The following are summary minutes of the meeting. ATTENDANCE: Roll Call—Absences: Vice Chair Dr. Peterson,Betty Black(called in prior to meeting—out ill), and Joey Maldonado (called prior to meeting—will be late, if able to make it). There are two current Commission vacancies(JoAnn Kernick and Sandra Terrell-Davis). Council appointments are pending. Excused Absence Requests: Betty Black (prior conflict), Dr. Stuart Elovitz (ill),Daniel Gonzales (change conflict),Wendy Lai(change conflict),and Errol Summerlin(ill). A Motion was made by Commissioner Johnson and seconded by Commissioner Vera to reflect the absences as excused,vote was taken and passed unanimously. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES: The minutes were reviewed for approval—Nancy Vera mentioned a possible need for a correction,but after discussion, it was determined to be not applicable. Commissioner Johnson made a motion to accept the minutes with the noted correction, seconded by Commissioner Vera. A vote was taken and passed unanimously. PUBLIC COMMENTS/PRESENTATIONS: None. CHAIRPERSON'S REPORT: No report at this time. SCANNED 1 COMMITTEE REPORT Housing Committee: Commissioner Maldonado coming late. Committee for Persons with Disabilities: Commissioner Crystal Lyons is the Chair. CFPWD has completed an Annual Report(distributed to Commissioners). Most recently the Committee has been working on an Education Outreach Opportunity—to share People First Language and ADA information with City Staff. The Committee has also been working with the Park and Recreation Commission. Staff are in need of a lot of education with respect to people with disabilities. They are helping move the Transition Plan—it is slow coming in. They had a presentation on CDBG funding. The Steering Committee will be holding a meeting at TAMU-CC regarding an Accessibility Guide they are working on. Education Sub-Committee: Commissioner Aguinaga composed and delivered a letter to Dr. Chavez, discussing their interest in working with the School District. They are interested in restructuring the Education Sub-Committee. They would like to target High School seniors. They have spoken with Administration. Dr. Goodloe was provided a copy of the correspondence. A group of her constituents to decide what to deliver, how to share and what has been done in the past, what has or hasn't worked. No response yet on setting up a meeting. May go into March,to include everyone. Commissioner Vera asked the date of the letter? Yesterday. Commissioner Lyons questioned, do we allow them to dictate what to put in a presentation? No,they were waiting for contact with the appropriate people. Commissioner Lyons expressed a concern that it sounds like they want to decide what will be provided. She asked if the Sub- Committee has an Agenda. They have ideas, but she doesn't have background history. Commissioner Vera asked for a copy of the letter. She will provide one. Commissioner Summerlin indicated that he has participated in the past. He has been to schools, where they met with student council representatives and members of honor society. Groups of 40 to 50 students. They would provide a general presentation, with open-ended dialogue. They were real surprised about how well received the programs were. They found a world of difference in questions and comments from different schools. In example, Carroll —they were bombarded with reverse discrimination against Anglos regarding scholarships; Moody — discrimination about inclusion. It was interesting and the Commission was surprised about how much work was needed out in the Community. They didn't do skits. He went to elementary schools on his own. Commissioner Aguifiaga said her initial attempts were with Dr. Chavez, but it has now shifted to Dr. Goodloe. Commissioner Johnson asked about the pending complaint with the school district? Mr. Ramos indicated they would discuss it further into the Agenda. OLD BUSINESS: Annual Reports —Each Commissioner was provided a copy of the two annual reports prepared for FY 2000-2001. (CCHRC and CFPWD reports) It is a requirement for each board,commission and committee to provide an annual report. The reports were completed and provided to the Mayor, City Council, City Manager, Deputy City Manager and City Secretary. Copies were distributed to the Commissioners and Committee for Persons with Disabilities members. There were some general questions and discussion— funds that were approved for Commission training, TAS Training, HUD Seminar, etc. Commissioner Summerlin indicated that there has been some out-of-town training in the past. It has been minimal. Commissioner Summerlin discussed recent correspondence and speaking engagement opportunity he wasn't able to participate in,but it pertained to diversity training. The agenda looks great. He indicated he would e-mail the information to the Commission. The reason he mentioned it,was that we could duplicate a similar program here. There were several tracks for Commission training. CDBG—Information and public meetings. There is a schedule on one of the pages provided. Staff are accepting project proposals until February 15t. Then we can follow the schedule for other meetings. Transition Plan—Mr. Ramos provided an update. The responses from City Departments are coming in. Mr. Ramos has had to go back to some departments. There are a lot of questions and he is working with new coordinators.He is still working on plans for the Public Meetings that will be held. The purpose of the public meetings is for community input. He has received suggestions from CFPWD on how to present the 2 information. We want to identify deficiencies, get input and provide a report to the City Manager. Suggested sites for public meetings are City Hall, Flour Bluff, Calallen, and Senior Community Centers. He is a little behind on compiling information for the Core Group. There is a problem with some facilities —they need to determine if those areas are for public use or restricted to personnel. There was discussion about developing a statement for city employees who might have a disability issue. That is a need for an accommodation arose,that they ask for the accommodation through the Human Resources Department. It might be an accommodation or relocation of the employee(alternate worksite). Brief follow-up discussion regarding CCISD ADA related complaint. Contact was made between parent and CCISD. They are attempting to resolve the matter informally. Commissioner Summerlin expressed concern about being careful of role of the Commission and discussion in an open forum. Some commissioners expressed a concern that CCISD is not familiar with ADA laws and guidelines. They wanted to stress to the Superintendent the need to educate him and his staff. Discussion ensued about future complaints being put forward in a formal manner and being careful of privacy issues. Commissioner Summerlin also discussed the right of Commissioners to file a Commission complaint—they have that right as a group. NEW BUSINESS: FY 2002-2003 Budget — The Human Relations Department is now looking at budget issues, revenue estimates, expenditures and putting information together to present to the Assistant City Manager,Deputy City Manager, City Manager,Mayor and Council. Ms. Shultz and Mr. Ramos attended this year's budget training for the new procedures. ADMINISTRATOR'S REPORT: Mr.Ramos provided the Administrator's Report and reviewed the information. It has been almost a year, since the signing of the HUD Interim Agreement. April will be our anniversary. We are in capacity building and training mode. Presently we are interviewing people, conducting intakes and preparing affidavits, input of information on our side, then forwarded cases to the Ft. Worth HUD Office. We are working on one case at a time. HUD cases must be closed within 100 days of receipt of the charge. Capacity building includes outreach. Presently we are working with the Housing Coalition—Mr. Ramos, Commissioners Maldonado, Johnson and Lyons have attended meetings. They are presently planning a Fair Housing Seminar for April 17t. Mr. Ramos has sent out correspondence requesting the Secretary of HUD to be the keynote speaker. We haven't received a response yet. You are all invited to attend. If you are interested, please let Ms. Shultz or Mr. Ramos know prior to the event. More information will be provided at the next meeting. ADA—We are still assisting people with Solid Waste Services calls. Four people were accommodated this month. The CFPWD is looking at the process for ADA accommodation requests or problem/complaint reporting. The City Manager will be reviewing the existing process with them. EEOC—The System Database crashed. We had to recreate action codes, ten cases were closed, eighteen cases were sent to SADO and we have eighty-nine pending cases, with an average case age of three hundred four days. We are bringing down the age of cases. It will definitely be going down in February. We anticipate approximately twenty cases to be closed by the end of February, beginning of March. All the older cases are being focused on. However,there is a fifteen-day hold period, that is a requirement to allow parties to dispute a letter of determination. Goals and Objectives for the office to meet the contract are 128 closures, 172 intakes (referrals to San Antonio). We have to look at the production phase too, which runs from June to May of each year. The numbers reached are what are used for establishing the next contract year goals. PUBLIC COMMENTS: 3 • Judy Telge, of ACI invited commissioners to attend an informational meeting on February 12, 2002, 1:30 p.m.—3:00 p.m.by Advocates Incorporated and Area Agency on Aging. They will be discussing the legal right on individual living issues. It will be held in the COG Conference Room. They would be discussing the Ohmstead ruling. A brochure was distributed. ADJOURNMENT: Commissioner Summerlin made a Motion to Adjourn, which was seconded by Commissioner Lyons. A vote was taken to Adjourn and passed unanimously. The meeting adjourned at approximately 6:18 p.m. CSL-, .310?`6,R Oscar Hinojosa, S .,Chairperson Date 4