Chambana Sun

City of Champaign Human relations Commission met November 6. 

Here is the minutes as provided by the commission:

I. Call to Order

II. Roll Call

a. Present: Commissioner Bressner, Commissioner Elmore (joined at 5:37), Commissioner Felty, Commissioner Greene, Commissioner Turner, Chairperson Young, Commissioner Willie Comer, Commissioner Midden 

b. Absent: Commissioner Creighton Comer

III. Approval of Meeting Minutes

a. October 2, 2017 Regular Meeting

     i. Changes or Amendments: None 

     ii. Motion to approve: Willie Comer 

      iii. Second: Turner 

     iv. Minutes Approved.

IV. Staff Reports - Rachel Joy, Community Relations Manager/Compliance Officer

a. Community Relations Office Monthly Activity Reports

     i. Two cases have been closed since October 2. Currently there are no open cases. One case has been referred to the State and Neighborhood Services for code complaint issues. Two individuals completed an intake but didn’t follow up for appointments. Currently there are no open cases with Police Department. 

b. Hiring Report

     i. In October there was 1 new hire that was a black male. This doesn’t include temporary employees but does include a promotion.

V. Correspondence/Announcements

     i. Felty- The Annual MLK celebration is Jan 12, 2018 4p.m. at the Vineyard Church 1500 N. Lincoln Ave. Urbana. It’s the 50th anniversary death of Dr. King. This year’s focus is on youth and carrying the dream forward. Recipients of the award will be youth in the community. Champaign and Urbana schools will be participating. Nominations are open on the cities website. Please go there to nominate students. 

     ii. Felty- Second Annual Inter Faith Thanksgiving celebration will be Sunday, November the 19th, 2017 3pm. at I HOTEL 1900 S. 1st St. Champaign. Free parking. Attendees are encouraged to bring non-perishable food to donate to Eastern Illinois Food bank.

VI. Audience Participation 

Audience to Felty-Is there a guest speaker yet for Inter-Faith? 

Felty- can’t release the name yet. 

Audience- Is it Charles Young? 

Felty-No, if you would like to be a speaker please get in touch with Rachel Joy. 

Audience- Inter-Faith what happened to Krannert why the I Hotel. 

Young- I will refer that to Amy Felty. 

Felty-Last year it was at Krannert but that date wasn’t available. This year will be at I-Hotel.

Young- Any other audience participation? We will move on to our guest speaker.

VII. Speaker: Gloria Yen, New American Welcome Center, University YMCA

Power Point Attached.

     a. Questions from Commissioners? 

Turner- You sent a survey to 60 participants when you opened up. Can you clarify the objective of the survey? 

Yen- The 60 community partners that were involved in Welcoming Week. Turner- Sorry, I thought it was a survey. 

Yen- Those partners would donate, host or brain storm for events. 

Turner- Is there a survey you give to the 5100 eligible citizens to inform them of the work you do? 

Yen- I wish we knew where all 5100 citizen eligible citizens lived so we could send a survey about services they need. Right now we are doing outreach thru faith communities, organizations that have regular established and trusted relations with citizen eligible contacts. 

Comer- French speaking students are having a hard time adjusting academically in Champaign schools. Was there a plan to create an environment where the students can come get support? 

Yen- Yes, thru La Linea Helpline if we can find French speaking people. 

Comer- Could you come and tutor in classrooms if you find French speaking people. 

Yen- I know Unit 4 is looking for help. But I’m not familiar with that. 

Midden- No questions. 

Felty- Are there 12 or 16 YMCA partners across the US as welcoming Centers? 

Yen- Yes that’s right. We were a part of the second pilot welcome centers. 12 in total. First launched in 2016. 

Felty- Are we similar to other YMCAs? 

Yen- It’s different a lot of what we are doing is bringing different people to the table. 

Bressner- Getting the word out to 5100 people about welcoming center and resources that are available you could use a number of local media outlets that are free. 

Yen- Thank You 

Greene- La Linea Helpline you need more volunteers that are French speaking. Is there an age limit? 

Yen- No age limit. 

Elmore- Regarding the 5 Pathways you went over could you expand what your working on with the health and well-being of people. 

Yen- Health and well-being piece is primarily working on creation of the internal service directory. 

Young- La Linea offers resource information. Where are you gathering the information when callers call in and what kind of resources are people typically asking about? 

Yen- We compile all information in Excel organized with tabs called housing, child care, health services, food pantry, DACA 

Renewal process and legal services. 

Young- Any other questions from Commissioners or Audience? 

Audience- Have you tried looking at University of Illinois language department? They have a large population of French students. 

Yen- We are hoping to expand in that area. We have a strong relationship with the Spanish/Portuguese department within the foreign language department. They send a lot of volunteers to La Linea thru their Spanish in community class the Spanish students get credit.

VIII. Committee Reports

a. 2017 Action Plan

     i. Commissioner Willie Comer – Marketing Materials

          1. We have 3 possible tracks to use for the music video. I will be bringing those in next month for you to                           make a decision. I will also be meeting with Greene. 

     ii. Commissioner Felty urged people to make nominations by November 17th for the MLK student awards.

IX. Old Business 

Young- asked Rachel Joy is there any updates on Use of Force Board? 

Joy- Responded Use of Force is appointed by the Chief of Police and we have one commissioner on that board. Which is commissioner Elmore. They have been in training and will complete training December 4th. 

Young- I would like to be more informed.

X. New Business

a. None.

XI. Audience Participation

a. None.

XII. Commissioners’ Comments

Elmore- The City provided information on how people should apply/interview to be on the Board or Subcommittee and the training is all together. 

Young- I know how the application worked and I’m focusing on the end result. I had no idea you were on the Use of Force Board. With us being a public entity. Perhaps that should have been relayed to us. I had no idea and the information wasn’t relayed to us as commissioners. People know, I have been apart of it from the beginning and when I don’t have the information that someone has already been chosen or even started training. 

Elmore-I agree we should be informed and sorry for not announcing I wasn’t on subcommittee. 

Young- We are talking about transparency here because people don’t trust. 

Greene- I’m excited to do marketing video and talk with Gloria. 

Bressner- Oct 21st had disability music and art festival. International survivors of suicide loss day will be at Parkland on Sat. Nov. 18th 10-1pm. 

Felty- Racial Justice Task Force has finished its work and will present to County Board on Nov 14th at 6:30pm in Brookens center. The public is welcomed. Nov. 30 Task force will present to the public at Champaign Public Library at 6:30pm. Karen Simms just finished 40 hour Trauma Training. 1hr 15 mins basic of understanding on Nov. 8th free session at Champaign Public Library at 2- 3:15pm Following that on Wednesday Nov 8th at 3:30pm Champaign Public Library Coalition All Goals discussing gun violence 

Sat Nov. 11th at 9:30-3:30 to help young children bloom and grow 

Stickels- The trauma trainings are on the Coalitions social media 

Comer- We were at the Expungement conference sitting next to HRC of Urbana discussing how their responding to people coming to table to let them know Urbana had dealt with housing and related to ex-offenders and landlords. We made a suggestion to City Council about that. Why haven’t we heard back from that? 

Joy- That recommendation was taken directly to Council. Council has to make that change and there has to be a study session for that. 

Each commissioner can go back and contact council members. 

Turner- Thank you to Comer and Young for attending the Expungement Summit. Urbana commissioners were providing business cards and had name badges. We don’t have any and discussed that with marketing material. 

W. Comer- I gave a brochure out at the Summit. Can you put the phone number on this brochure? Do we have a 1-800 number where people can leave a voicemail? 

Young- Any other commissioner comments?

XIII. Adjournment

a. Motion to Adjourn: Turner 

b. Second: W. Comer 

c. Meeting adjourned at 6:35 p.m.

http://documents.ci.champaign.il.us/v/1__IwhdB0e3mlqX21VDwbvGqcSKPKKXAr