Human Rights Commission Regular Meeting   12/7/2023

She's at Tandem now, so she's doing, they have a lot of argy things that she's doing, plays.

Good grade.

Is she 10?

11.

How'd that happen?

I don't know.

I think that was present for most of us.

They get taller and pick her.

That's where it is.

I can't see that far, but it does in fact look like it.

That seems good to you.

Remi, could we impose upon you to take a cell phone picture of us at the end to commemorate 10 years and who's on the commission after 10 years?

That'd be amazing.

Jessica?

Ernest?

Jeanette?

The Commission is not receiving virtual public comment.

The Commission welcomes comments for anyone that is in person.

We don't have anyone in person, so I won't finish the rest of that sentence.

We'll go ahead and recite our mission.

To act as a strong advocate to justice and equal opportunity by providing city-wide leadership and guidance in the area of civil rights.

Any amendments before we do a roll call vote?

Thanks to Jenny for preparing them as always.

Jessica?

Yes.

Ernest?

Approved.

Suzanne?

And now we have chair updates and so last month we celebrated ten years so we're gonna have a little cake afterwards to celebrate and I just wanted to give kudos to Todd I know you don't like to be put on the spot but for all your hard work that you've done for the Commission for the last year and you've been in the office for a long time and I look forward that you have full-time staff and just look forward to see what y'all gonna accomplish so thank you for your for your work thanks

I did get to speak to City Council Monday briefly.

Oh, you've been around as long as I have.

Maybe so, yeah.

But it was awesome first meeting you as a parent.

Yeah, absolutely, in the parking lot.

That's exactly right.

Thanks, Ernest.

That's really kind.

That's all I have.

Do you want to go to Lily?

Do you want to go first?

You're welcome to.

OK.

So we have been making new brochures on how to file a complaint and what that process looks like.

Service and assistance animals and things that people

Generally, you may need to know about that.

Fair housing and equal employment, which we already have, but we just sort of updated the theme of them so that they're more consistent.

And also the commission itself, which is an explanation of what you do and how people can bring matters to you and things like that.

They're currently being printed, so when

If they are printed, maybe I can bring them to a meeting so you can see them.

The deadline for new applications to be on the commission is tomorrow at 5 p.m.

So if there's anybody that you know of that maybe needs a nudge, go ahead.

And we

I have been bringing our brochures around to various places in the community.

So if there are any places that you know of that you think you should have brochures that you don't see them, I'm happy to bring you some that you can place there or if you

Just want to tell me where it is I didn't pick up.

So you may start seeing our information popping up out and about in the city in the next few weeks.

We have also been talking about rolling out Commissioner one-on-ones with me so that I can get to know all of you individually.

going forward since I won't now be full time.

So I can send you more information about that tomorrow via email, but just a heads up that that's coming.

If any of you are interested, I would love to talk to you and hear what you have to say.

And also, the only tabling event that I have on the calendar right now is the West Haven holiday celebration, which will be December 21st from 4 to 8 PM, which is a Thursday.

And it will be at City Promise.

So if any of you can make it, I know that is a difficult time to schedule around the 21st.

Four to eight.

If you can't come for the whole thing, that's totally fine.

It's a long chunk.

I was invited, which I think means that I could invite you guys to table with me.

I'm not sure if the event is open to the public or if it's more centered on the residents of West Haven, but I know that there will be other organizations tabling.

Thank you.

Should I give an update?

OK. A few things.

Some of them are in this report, but others I just want to shout out.

But they aren't in the report.

First, this is in the report that we're welcoming Shiel Chapman to our office as investigator in training.

She starts on Monday.

So that's really exciting.

If you're in the area and want to stop by and say hello,

You're more than welcome to do so.

Many of you probably haven't met Saad Galifa, who is also our intake and administrative specialist.

Some of you may have popped in and he only works till five, and we don't ask him to come to these meetings because he works really hard all day.

But anytime you want to stop by and meet the folks, please do.

And hopefully, maybe I think I'm going to try to get everybody to our strategic planning in March, because I think that would be a great time for everybody to check in and get to know one another.

Speaking of which, we're in conversation with the Center for Nonprofit Excellence.

We're going to have a meeting with them soon.

I want to explore a number of things with them.

In the past, maybe some of you recall when we had strategic planning, we utilized their facilitation to just make sure that we could all be engaged rather than worry about the meeting of the meeting.

So going to see if they're willing to do that again.

And in addition to that just look at what other resources they may have just for board training and other things like that that may be useful for the future as we kind of ponder our calendar for next year.

So that's happening.

Jessica was just mentioning to me here as well to talk about the proclamation that we have drafted and submitted to

The Clerk of Council for their consideration, just recognizing and acknowledging the 10 years of the Commission.

That is in the Clerk's hands now, so I think she's probably going to bring it in front of the Mayor for consideration, but it's just a very simple acknowledgement of the 10 years that the Commission has been around, and just making sure we commemorate that in public.

So that's going to be hopefully at the 12-18, December 18th meeting.

Sam Sanders, city manager in most recent leadership team meeting, brought it up and he said, and the commission will be there, right?

And I was like, well, I'll ask them.

So this would be December the 18th, 6.30.

So that's when the regular meeting starts.

They usually have a work session from four to six.

Right now, that's mostly budget presentations.

But if you can,

It would be much appreciated by the council if you were there.

And I think it goes a long way to just, again, helping them remember, we're here.

We're here to work with you.

Very intimidating.

She did great, by the way.

During, so the proclamations are usually read like right at the beginning.

Okay.

So I would say get there then.

Okay.

I'm pretty sure they happen, proclamations and announcements happen right before the consent agenda typically and then public comment goes after that.

Okay.

I think I have that order right.

No, that's fine.

Okay.

I was wondering if we had a particular counselor that you wanted to ask to read it.

What do you think, Jessica?

This is new territory for me as well.

I can ask first of all if there's some sort of system and then if you'd like I can ask for a particular person if you prefer.

So yeah, let me know but I'll certainly ask Kyna if there's any plan.

Great.

I will make sure that that was reflected.

Thanks.

And then, sorry, taking some notes.

Oh, the other thing that's out kind of pending right now is that I have a pending request to city attorney and the mayor as well though just right now to the city attorney in terms of feasibility for them to come to a future meeting to talk about the progress with the legislative recommendations that they adopted from what you proposed

I think I mentioned that they're shopping for sponsors right now in the General Assembly, so it's kind of early in the game.

I was kind of hoping that maybe February's meeting or something like that is what I pitched to them last time because that gives them a little bit of time to do that shopping around work and maybe bring some substantive updates to us.

So anyway, that's in the works as well.

That's all I have in terms of updates.

The session will be almost over.

Is that right?

Yeah, it's just 60 days, so it starts January 10th.

Okay.

I'm not familiar with that.

Which is fine if that's what we want them, but if we want them to tell us while there's still an opportunity to do advocacy at this session, then you'd probably want them in January.

Yeah.

That's a good question.

And I guess there's not much in terms of advocacy.

I think my day job focuses around the legislative sessions.

That's like our, I don't know, whatever it is, like not Christmas because it's not that good.

But it's like the, you know, a lot of work time.

Gotcha.

That might be what we get.

Yes, because as I understand the process, they basically bring their slated recommendations to TJPBC, the Planning Commission, or yeah, Thomas Jefferson or the Planning Commission, and then they assemble all those into a regional set of

Like a regional platform of Proposals and then they I guess sounds like City Council has some role in Finding a sponsor in the general assembly again.

This is kind of like secondhand knowledge for me.

So Yeah, I think it might be a report back.

Yeah, so and I also know that we January 18th.

We have the ADA Transition plan town hall that we're kind of partnering with the ADA coordinator on and then I don't know if

It's also possible.

Thinking about long term, but yeah.

January 18th is our regular meeting yep and so we're partnering with Paul Rudisill who's our ADA coordinator they're rolling out the new ADA transition plan and all the sort of findings that they did in the in the study of where deficiencies are in the city in terms of ADA compliance so

It's a time for the public to ask questions and that sort of thing.

He's also under the Office of Social Equity.

By the way, that whole thing has changed.

If you've been following counsel, Ashley is no longer the

Deputy City Manager for Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.

She's now the Deputy City Manager for Social Equity.

And so Paul is also under her purview as well.

And because it's also protected class figure, that would be a good use of our space.

So anyway, there you go.

We don't have any action updates, but I want to turn it over

So we received two nominations to date.

Today is an opportunity for us to put forth a slate from the nominations committee, which we will do, and then we'll open it up if anyone wants to add any additional nominations.

And then the vote will be next month, right?

So the current slate is nominating Chris Chambers for chair.

And I was trying to hold back, too.

I was thinking about something else completely.

And the second nomination was for Wolf King.

So those were the only two that were received.

And they were both both born by me, so it was really good.

There you go.

But it's now an open floor.

If anyone else would like to make a nomination, you may nominate yourself.

So do we have to vote?

No, we don't have to vote.

And often we leave time for you to say a few words about your interest, if you accept the nomination and you're interested in it.

Ernest, is there anything you'd like to say?

Sure.

I don't have any comments prepared, but in summation, I accept the nomination.

I really love this work.

I really love being able to do it.

It's an honor to be able to have a community create the space for us, have a city create the space for us, that you can be a part of advocating and also a reflection of our community, because it's a really beautiful thing.

I also believe that we do have the opportunity at the next meeting for additional nominations.

So that's open as well, if anyone else changes their mind and wants to add to that.

I also wanted to thank you, Jessica, for two years as Chair is a lot.

I didn't realize that's a lot of work.

Thank you.

Susan, do you understand the process?

In January.

But anyone can, if someone changes their mind, they can nominate someone that can too.

And usually we've asked like the chair or the vice chair to prepare something, but we haven't had any.

Competition, but I think we both briefly spoke, so something that they can look at if they like.

No pressure.

Yeah, I just hope that Ernest and Wolfgang don't change their minds.

We want to confirm if we're going to have the next work session meeting for January 4th.

What was needed in terms of... Like what would be the focus for that meeting?

I don't know if we have any particular focus.

Did you say that we would not have enough time to grade the city attorney and all that?

I can ask again, yeah.

I'll invite them.

You can ask.

So keep it if they accept, and then if not, then we won't have a meeting.

A question too, if we're having a joint meeting with ADA on the 18th, does anybody need to prepare before that?

Can we improve the current draft?

The bulk of the work is more on the ADA coordinator and the consultant that they're working with so they they're gonna present basically the information that they've prepared

No, yeah, I think the most, the reason we,

One to show support for this work, which obviously isn't related to our work, and also to take advantage of the public platform that the commission has that the ADA coordinator does not.

They do a lot of other outreach to try to generate support, but the fact that we have this established time and it's televised and there's virtual participation makes a big difference.

Just to back up that effort.

But I will ask about the fourth.

And so what I'm hearing, I mean, I want to make sure that we honor Remy and his team to make sure that we post public notice far and again.

So I'll maybe do one more follow up this week.

If we don't, well, let's see.

Tentative to hold it.

We won't put public notice until maybe midweek next week, if that's OK.

I think there is no new business.

We don't have matters in the public, because no one's here.

How does it work?

Any other commissioner?

Alright.

We will, the next steps are none except that Todd is going to check to see if the city manager, who was it?

Oh, city attorney.

The city attorney, sorry, I was like city manager, that wasn't right.

City attorney could be able to see, test our work session and if that is, we'll determine if we'll have that meeting, if they're available.

That's it.

Wow.

Okay.

That's it.