A bid to continue funding for the nonprofit that runs the Orange County Human Relations Commission failed Tuesday when county supervisors could not agree on the agency’s future.
After hearing hours of testimonials from dozens of backers of the nonprofit Orange County Human Relations Council, the supervisors deadlocked in a 2-2 vote on a $252,000 contract recommended by Orange County staff. The council was the only agency that bid for the job.
Orange County Supervisor Shawn Nelson, the tie-breaker, was not at Tuesday’s board meeting because he was out of state on vacation. He said he will attend next week’s board meeting, when Supervisor Todd Spitzer vows to have the board reconsider his effort to approve the contract.
Board Chairwoman Michelle Steel and Supervisor Andrew Do voted against the contract for the nonprofit. Orange County Supervisor Lisa Bartlett sided with Spitzer.
Nelson told City News Service he hasn’t decided how he will vote.
“I haven’t made up my mind. I’m open minded, but I have concerns,” he said.
Nelson praised the council’s work with law enforcement in mediating police abuse complaints.
“And the police agencies seem to appreciate the tool when they need it,” Nelson said. “The mediation services are helpful, but they’ve had a nasty habit over time of picking up on political situations that polarizes them. County government doesn’t want to get involved in this stuff.”
Nelson said he would like to keep funding in place for the commission if “we can focus on the good work they do and keep them out of the political stuff.”
Supervisor Do complained of a “blurring” of lines between the council – – the nonprofit — and the commission — the county agency.
Do said the nonprofit is “a private entity that raises money on its own and does its own work and then says it does that work on the county’s behalf.”
The nonprofit can act “without county oversight, without any accountability to us,” Do said.
Do said he supports the continuation of a commission that works on calming racial fears and bringing people together and offered up a personal anecdote of being choked into unconsciousness by bullies when he was a child.
“I was fading from consciousness. It wasn’t the fear of death, it was the cackling and humiliation of my tormenters that rang in my ears,” Do said. “And so the importance of race relations cannot be over-emphasized to me.”
Spitzer noted that council officials were just sent an eviction notice so there was an urgency to decide the issue. If the council does not get the contract, then the lease expires, Chief Executive Officer Frank Kim told the supervisors.
Spitzer recalled the rash of hate crimes and incidents following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and praised the commission’s work on improving race relations.
“If not for the human relations commission we would have experienced a lot more civil unrest and violence in this county,” Spitzer said.
“I want to send a very strong message that the human relations commission and council are an integral part of our county fabric,” he said.
Spitzer dismissed arguments from Do and Steel about the council being warned last year to work on “disentangling” itself from the commission.
“We could have formed an ad hoc committee a long time ago” to work on the issue, Spitzer said. “That’s called sitting on your hands. And the work of the human relations commission is too important to allow people to sit on their hands.”
Do said even if the county does not fund the nonprofit it doesn’t change anything. The nonprofit can still raise money to fund its activities and the county can still keep the commission going with county employees.
But Bartlett argued that the council would be out of its offices in Santa Ana and if a racially charged incident occurs, there would be confusion about how to track down the council to help quell it.
“I certainly don’t want it on my conscience that we let this lease lapse and they don’t have a place and we get a 911 call and there is an incident in the community and we’re putting people’s lives at stake,” Bartlett said. “This is a good program. It needs to be funded and I support moving this item forward.”
According to a recent staff report, hate crimes and incidents were on the rise last year.
There were 50 reported hate crimes last year in Orange County. That’s up from 44 in 2015, according to the commission.
The so-called “hate incidents” saw the most eye-popping increase. Those are defined as racially charged incidents that don’t necessarily rise the level of a crime.
Last year, there were 72 reported hate incidents, up from 43 the prior year.
Black residents are the most frequent target of hate crimes in Orange County, despite only making up 2.1 percent of the county’s population. Fourteen percent of the county’s reported hate crimes involved black residents, according to the commission.
The second most targeted group was lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender residents, who accounted for 10 percent of the hate crimes.
There was a drop in hate crimes against LGBT people from 11 in 2015 to five last year.
Hate crimes against Latinos doubled from two in 2015 to four last year. There was an increase from three to four in hate crimes against Asians.
Anti-Semitic hate crimes dropped from seven in 2015 to four last year. Christians were victims of three hate crimes.
The most common targets of hate incidents were Latinos and Muslims. Muslims accounted for 35 percent of the incidents and Latinos were victims 18 percent of the time.
Most of the hate incidents occurred in public — about 33 percent of the time — with schools being second most frequent arena for racially charged conflicts at 24 percent, according to the commission.
–City News Service