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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1995 07-12 HRRMMINUTES OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS AND RESOURCES COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF BROOKLYN CENTER IN THE COUNTY OF HENNEPIN AND THE STATE OF MINNESOTA REGULAR SESSION JULY 12, 1995 CITY HALL CALL TO ORDER The Brooklyn Center human rights and resources commission was called to order at 7:10 p.m. ROLL CALL Members present: Chairperson Lerbs, Commissioners Yang, Brown, Maddox, and Nesseth. Also present Council Liaison Hilstrom and Staff Liaison Gohman. Members absent and excused: Commissioners Eoloff, Nyquist, and ANN Members absent and unexcused: C-effi - ssief ehtelik There was a brief discussion by the Commission at this time about vacancies on the Commission noting there is one vacancy, and we have received two applications for the vacancy at City Hall. APPROVAL OF MINUTES - MAY 10. 1995 Discussion of minutes of May 10, 1995 as amended. The Commission was in consensus that the amended minutes of May 10, 1995, had been approved and amended correctly. APPROVAL OF MINUTES - JUNE 14. 1995 There was a motion by Commissioner Yang and seconded by Commissioner Maddox to approve the June 14, 1995, minutes. The motion carried. APPROVAL OF AGENDA OF JULY 12. 1995 There was a motion by Commissioner Brown and seconded by Commissioner Yang to approve the agenda for July 12, 1995. The motion carried. BUDGET The Commission discussed the budget and its allocation for 1995. Nancy Gohman, Assistant City Manager, handed out the budget sheet showing commission expenditures which consisted of the membership to the league human: rights and expenditures for the appreciation meeting at the beginning of the year. There is discussion about an outstanding bill of $300 to Chuck Greenwood of Lakewood Graphics who provided the services to put together the Human Rights and Resources banner. Staff Liaison 7/12/95 -1- Gohman stated she would get in contact with Chuck Greenwood to get a bill for payment for such banner. • There was a general discussion about the budget, the commission discussed expenditures for cultural diversity training that will occur in 1995. Staff Liaison Gohman stated that for the 1996 budget, she has budgeted $4,000 as a request since the bulk of the money for cultural diversity training will have been done in 1995. WORK PLAN The commission discussed the work plan. Chair Lerbs stated that No. 1 on the work plan has been done. There was a general discussion by the members about the float and the banner. All members felt that it was a great success for the Human Rights and Resources Commission to participate in the parade for Earle Brown Days. Council Liaison Hilstrom stated that we can continue to use the banner, because Brookdale Mall is getting into a program where they will be hanging banners in the Mall. Commissioner Brown described the banner to those who did not see it in the parade. There was a general discussion about sending thank you notes to those who helped and assisted the Human Rights and Resources Commission to have a successful float in the parade. Thank you notes were sent to: Lakeland Graphics, Chuck Greenwood, Earle Brown Parade Committee, and Brookdale Dodge. Chair Lerbs asked the commission members to focus their discussion on the work plan. Commissioner Nesseth stated that she is interested in No. 5 on the work plan which is facilitating some sort of events to center around Martin Luther King Day and she is looking for people to help on a subcommittee on this item. Council Liaison Hilstrom stated that Martin Luther King Day all the schools are closed so maybe a program in cooperation with recreation and swimming at the community center would be a good way to celebrate the event. Commissioner Yang asked a question what specifically do we want to do in this event. Chair Lerbs stated maybe we could take advantage of Brookdale for the Martin Luther King celebration holiday. Commissioner Nesseth also asked a question of what they specifically want to do. Does the commission want to have a contest or some type of essay or even coloring contest for youth or should there be something like having a poem about what is freedom or what does human rights mean to you. Council Liaison Hilstrom asked if there was a subcommittee working on this. Commissioner Nesseth responded there had been a discussion about a subcommittee and she is interested in chairing that subcommittee but there has not been much response from members on helping and how to proceed. Commissioner Yang stated that he would rather see the commission deal with items as a group and not strike out as subcommittees, specifically to make sure we do not have too many subcommittees working on items. Commissioner Yang suggested that we include the items from the work plan as part of the meeting agendas and discuss action plans at each meeting. Commissioner Maddox asked what the commission is going to do and what the consensus of the commission is with Commissioner Yang's idea. Commissioner 7/12/95 -2- 0 Yang again stated that he would like to see the group plan and work on items together • to be more resourceful and get things done rather than work in subcommittees. Commissioner Yang stated that sometimes some committee members forget meetings and the participation is then limited to one or two people to work on the plan, others then are left out of the planning process. He would like to see a work plan on the monthly agenda so the group has a chance to decide on what was happening. Commissioner Maddox stated that he does not understand the work plan what does 1 through 5 mean and how is this prioritized and put together. Commissioner Brown reviewed the work plan and stated No. 1 has been done, No. 2 on the work plan has been partially done, and No. 3 on the work plan has been moved up because we are working with others on bias response training others meaning other Human Rights and Resources Commission as coordinated through Northwest Hennepin Human Services Council. Commissioner Maddox stated she would like to see No. 1 through No. 5 as a sequence of events. Council Liaison Hilstrom suggested that a timeline be developed to work on the events. Commissioner Brown restated that would be fine except for No. 3 is driven by outside factors who are working with other human rights groups on this. For example, Martin Luther King is driven by a specific day which is designated as the holiday. Commissioner Brown stated that maybe they should do research regarding Martin Luther King Day as possibly find out what Recreation is doing on that day and make some plans by working with a subcommittee of the Human Rights and Resources Commission. Commissioner Yang restated that he would like to see more people involved rather than just having subcommittees work on things. Chair Lerbs stated that • initially he had made the recommendation for subcommittees since we have had problems in the past by calling special meetings and attendance. He did not want to encourage special meetings and therefore would like to see subcommittees work on things if others want to work on special projects. Commissioner Yang suggested that N 2 on the work plan be placed on the August meeting agenda. There was a motion by Commissioner Yang and seconded by Commissioner Maddox to place No. 2 on the work plan on the commission agenda for August. The motion carried. o. BIAS RESPONSE Two of the subcommittee members met on June 18, members who met were Commission Brown and Chair Lerbs. Chair Lerbs stated that the recommendation is to have all commission members look over sample bias response plans which were distributed by Northwest Hennepin Human Services Council. Members are to look over each sample plan and determine what they like out of the different plans and bring their recommendations to the commission in the future. The idea is to take the best pieces of all the plans and put them together for the Brooklyn Center Human Rights and Resources Commission bias response plan. There was a general discussion about having the bias response subcommittee meet. It was the consensus of the commission to have the subcommittee meet on August 2, 1995, at 7 p.m. which is a Wednesday at city hall. 0 7/12/95 -3- Staff Liaison Gohman will post the meeting. Commissioner Brown continued to update the commission on bias response. Comissioner Brown stated there are several factors • that you have to work on when you are putting together a bias response plan. Those factors are reporting, referral training, and support specifically by determining how police reports are generated and brought forward to the group who handles bias response plans. Secondly, is to develop the support or response team when a complaint or concern comes in and finally to involve the community schools, churches, and businesses in a bias response plan. The commission asked if Staff Liaison Gohman could get information regarding the police department on how they handle and report bias response crimes or concerns or issues. Also to have Staff Liaison Gohman bring a list of church and schools to the next commission meeting. Commissioner Brown stated that she would like to work with the churches to see how they could work together with the commission on the bias response plan. Commissioner Nesseth asked specifically what all commission members should do. Commissioner Brown reviewed the Roseville plan and stated that for instance if you liked the Roseville plan or like pieces of plan you look it over and bring your ideas to the commission at the next meeting where we discuss the bias response plan so we can put our plan together from pieces of plans that already exist. Staff liaison Gohman stated once a plan is put together that she recommends that the commission bring the plan forward to the City Council since the commissions are advisory groups and ask Council for their approval. There was a general discussion about the plan and how it would be brought forward to the City Council and implementation of a bias response plan. Commissioner Maddox asked why are we putting together a bias response plan. Should • we do research to see if there is a need for a bias response plan before we move ahead with this. There was a general discussion by commission members that this is a preventative measure, to not wait until something happens but to have a plan in place in case there is a bias issue that the commission would like to respond to. Chair Lerbs reminded all members that bias response was put on the work plan by all members of the Human Rights and Resources Commission and it was voted on and it is a priority of our work plan. CULTURAL DIVERSITY TRAINING Nancy Gohman stated that she is working with trainers to put together cultural diversity training for all staff members for this fall. There was a general discussion about cultural diversity training. HERITAGE FESTIVAL Chair Lerbs reported that the Heritage Festival has changed from the fall to February. The dates have already been changed. There was a general concern and question about why the changes. Commissioner Yang suggested that No. 4 on the work plan be linked to and combined with the Heritage Festival. 7/12/95 -4- 0 There was a motion by Commissioner Yang and seconded by Commissioner Nesseth to • move that work plan item No. 4 be linked with the Heritage Festival to be accomplished in February 1996. The motion carried. TRANSPORTATION There was a general discussion about transportation. Nancy Gohman briefly updated the Commission stating that the Council had asked the Commission to look into the issue of transportation. She also stated that transportation is a big issue and that over $30,000,000 has been spent over the past years in the metro area regarding transit issues. There was a general discussion about the five cities transportation program and the question was posed should we look for additional transportation to assist in medical transportation. It was the consensus of the commission to have staff liaison Gohman get information from Northwest Hennepin Human Services Council on transportation issues. Commissioner Nesseth said that she would be willing to make phone calls to find out if bus companies would be willing to move into this area of transportation. There was a motion made by Commissioner Nesseth and seconded by Commissioner Brown to review transportation issues on their own (each commissioner) and also have staff gather information from Northwest Hennepin Human Services on their transportation project so the Brooklyn Center Hennepin Human Services Commission will not duplicate the efforts. Those approved: Moved Yang, Brown, Nesseth. Those opposed: Maddox. The motion carried. HUMAN SERVICES REDESIGN AND INITIATIVE (DISTRICT #281 SCHOOLS) Staff Liaison Gohman handed out information regarding this issue. Gohman stated that the Mayor had asked if any HRRC members were interested in attending this meeting. There was a general discussion about this program. Council Liaison Hilstrom stated that she will go to the meeting at this time if no one else would be able to attend. Council Liaison Hilstrom will attend and report back to the commission regarding this program at this next meeting. FAMILY SERVICES COLLABORATIVE Council Liaison Hilstrom reported on this program. She stated that this program is to provide satellite human service location throughout the City. One site that Northwest Hennepin and the family services collaborative is looking at is the apartment complex the City owns on the area of 69th and Humboldt. Council liaison Hilstrom reported on the progress and that the Council be looking into this and also what the funding would be requested for from the City if we were to proceed in this program. CONTRACTUAL SERVICES The Commission discussed that the contractual services proposal and asked who was going to be interviewed this year and asked about the status of CEAP. Staff liaison Gohman said she solicited proposals only from those who were funded through the 1995 budget. Staff Liaison Gohman asked the commission if they would like her to solicit any 0 7/12/95 -5- other organizations for this interview process. There was a motion by Commissioner Nesseth and seconded by Commissioner Brown to • have staff solicit CEAP and Northwest Hennepin Human Services Family Service Collaborative to find out what they are going to ask for funding from Brooklyn Center for 1996. The motion carried. ADJOURNMENT There was a motion by Commissioner Yang and seconded by Commissioner Nesseth to adjourn the meeting at 9:20 p.m. The motion carried. • 7/12/95 -6- 0