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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1996/12/02 - ADMIN - Minutes - City Council - Joint CITY OF JOINT MEETING ST. LOUIS CITY COUNCIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION PARK CITY OF ST. LOUIS PARK, MINNESOTA December 2, 1996 Those present: Gail Dorfman, Mayor; Sue Sanger, Ward 1 Councilmember; Ron Latz, Ward 3 Councilmember; Joanne Kutzler, Deputy City Manager; Charlie Meyer, City Manager; Jerry Rotman, Human Rights Commissioner; Mike Brandt, Human Rights Commissioner; Linda Mack Ross, Human Rights Commissioner; Judith Moore, Human Rights Commissioner; Judith Cook, Human Rights Commissioner; Teri Reitan, Human Rights Commissioner; Barry Dunyear; Human Rights Commissioner; Cindy Larsen, City Clerk/Administrative Assistant. Mayor Dorfman opened the meeting and expressed a desire to talk about the relationship between the City Council and the Human Rights Commission. She felt a number of years ago there was a sense of animosity between the Council and Commission and that there were a number of things contributing to this. It is the Council's hope that with this meeting, that can be resolved. She hoped tonight's discussion would begin to develop a clear understanding of what is the role of the Commission, what does the Council expect and does that make sense. Judith Moore believed the role of the Commission should be clearly defined in the By-laws since there are changes in both bodies from time to time. She believed this evening's topic should be the grievance policy. Linda Ross felt the Commission has been treated fairly disrespectfully. Some people say it is advisory in nature, but no one has ever acknowledged its advisements. For example, when the Commission suggested a police review board should be formed, no one bothered to talk to the Commission about it at all. Mayor Dorfman said she would want to know of any aspect of discrimination in the community and right now, she doesn't. She felt that would be an appropriate role for the Commission,to assess the community and be able to report back to the Council. She would like to know what cases are being referred to the State Dept. of Human Rights from St. Louis Park. Currently that information is not available. Mayor Dorfman asked the commissioners what they now do if they gets calls reporting discrimination. Ms. Ross said if the call involves the police, she contacts Capt. Walker and then calls the person back to report what action she has taken. She said years ago people with complaints would come to commission meetings but that seemed to become a frustrating situation because the commission didn't have anything to say,just listened. It was noted the State receives some 25,000 call a year and there is such a terrific backlog, most reports are not addressed for up to a year and a half. It's hard to get through to the State Dept. of Human Rights, they don't take all the cases and commissioners' experience is that they are being told by the State, "We don't know who to contact at your city" although that office has been provided the names on numerous occasions. Ms. Ross said that the no fault grievance procedure is just a piece of what they seek--they want to have a place where people could report so they can know what is going on and then be able to deal with grievances whether referring them out to another agency, whether it's just talking to people. But they need a procedure in place that is formalized. Mediation is just a part of it. There was discussion about the commission acting in an investigative role or as fact-finders which some Councilmembers felt to be beyond what volunteers on the commission ought to be doing. Fact finding should be done by individuals who have authority to resolve such situations. Councilmember Sanger felt there was a role here for education. She did not think the role of the Commission was to do investigation of particular facts; rather follow up complaints with educational efforts. A comment was offered that any one on a Human Rights Commission would be written off by someone complaining about discrimination,that they wouldn't want to present their case to a commissioner, since they would not be perceived as being impartial. Mr. Rotman suggested it not be assumed that because one is a member of the HRC that there cannot be impartiality in perception by both parties, whoever they may be. He described the procedure of a senior attorneys' club of which he is a member and how it functions to address various matters that come before it for mediation. If either party has a problem with the perceived impartiality of the mediator, that person refrains from serving. Mr. Dunayear reflected on his experience as a prevention specialist and the value of doing a needs assessment to prevent problems from occurring. He reiterated Councilmember Sanger's comments that it is very important to know what is going on throughout the community. It would be helpful to have a procedure in place so that everyone would know there was some place they could turn to be heard. He looked for understanding that it would be nice to be able to have that as a documented, approved vehicle. Councilmember Sanger saw this working for complaints against City employees; however, what if 10 people came complaining about Park Nicollet. How would this be handled? Mr. Brand returned to the question of what is the commission's role. He has always viewed St. Louis Park as a forward-looking, progressive community. He felt the commission was seeking that the City become more pro-active in this area. He would like to see items such as discussed this evening dealt with on a local level. Perhaps collecting data and seeing what the need is here in St. Louis Park was the appropriate way to begin. Councilmember Sanger asked what was the difference between the mediation the Commission might be interested in doing vs. the support given to the City to the West Suburban Mediation (WSM) who is a referral source for any person(s). Ms. Ross said she felt there were several people at WSM she felt were biased in their role- playing and in their mediation. Mostly she felt they were not well-trained and it was her hope that the Commission would be well-trained, would become more astute about multi-cultural issues and multi-cultural mediation. Mr. Meyer asked if it would not be wise to provide WSM with standards the City wanted them to meet for any mediators they would use for mediating human rights types of cases under the City contract. Mr. Rotman felt that was theoretically possible; the question is whether it is translatable. He asked if it might not be an advantage to have mediation provided locally as opposed to exporting it even to WSM from the standpoint of the satisfaction that the individual may have as a result of that process -- that it is done here by people who may not have any basic difference in mediation training but may have the additional benefit/advantage of deeper, fuller training. Certainly standards could be set up as to what the expectations are. Mr. Meyer felt that by using the West Suburban Mediation on a contractual basis as mediators, there were build-in checks and balances that would cover any situation wherein a citizen had a problem with a mediator from the HRC. Mayor Dorfman felt the information on the HRC can be gotten out whether it be a brochure as well as other ways. She felt they could do a number of needs assessments and then can have people come to commission meetings to discuss their issues and discuss their options. What needs more conversation is the mediation piece --do we want to offer that?can we have sufficient concurrence that we are all conformable with that? Councilmember Latz referenced item 4 on the task force report on how to handle external complaints. The only part he had concerns about was item e : Conducting Hearings as opposed to handling mediations. He was not ready to go that far at this point. Ms. Moore noted the Council was interested in the step-by-step process for the mediation;what is the process from receiving a call to involving individuals in the mediation process. Questions were also raised regarding liability. Councilmember Sanger said another aspects would be the kinds of disputes the commission would decline to get involved in. Also what kind of data do they want to gather and what are they going to do with it. Councilmember Latz felt it should be determined legally whether the data would be considered non-public or public. 11 Councilmember Latz said he'd like to see a more detailed proposal on the mediation process; he'd like to see a more detailed proposal on the kind of data you would hope to collect and what you might think of doing with it; and I'd like you to take a look at some of the issues we've raised here ---whether it is in conjunction with City staff or the City Attorney --to look at the issue of liability of data practices questions, of getting involved in discovery disputes. Those are all implementation issues we need to deal with in the process. For me, the critical question is do we think you ought to be doing mediation work in the community. My view is yes. Mr. Meyer said perhaps we could ask the HRC at the same time to evaluate whether it would be preferable to having contract mediation services with certain controls in human rights cases vs. having the Human Rights Commissioners be mediators. Mr. Rotman believed if there was going to be additional detail provided in these concepts that it was important the Council try to give the commission a clue in terms of what the concept is or may make sense because if the commission is then going to provide this detailed analysis of procedurally meeting the questions and concerns raised and then be faced with the question and the Council decides it doesn't want it,then I don't think that's quite fair. First and foremost, I think the concept is important to communicate to us. Mayor Dorfman suggested putting this item on the next study session and do an informal poll of the Council to see if we tell you to move ahead on that. ri Ai 60 ‘i 1 0-5 i Mayor Gail Dorfman , /04_,,L..„..._ Recording Secretary 1 '