Survey open on creating city Human Rights Commission
Jeremy M. Lazarus | 9/5/2017, 10:35 a.m.
A four-member city task force is forging ahead on a study on creating a Human Rights Commission for Richmond.
The chair, Riqia E. Taylor, announced Tuesday that the task force has set up an online survey through which city residents can provide their views on the proposal.
The survey may be found at www.surveymonkey.com/r/HumanRightsTaskForceSurvey.
Ms. Taylor said the task force hopes a diverse cross-section of residents will take the survey to help shape the recommendations. She said the task force, which was created in March by Richmond City Council, expects to present its recommendation to the council by the Sept. 30 deadline.
The task force, whose members also include Kathryn Giles Harnsberger, Rodney Lofton and Josie Mace, held two public hearings in July.
“We only had a total of 31 people participate” in the hearings, Ms. Taylor said.
She said people who attended spoke in favor of a establishing a Human Rights Commission as a platform to express concerns about discrimination and civil rights issues.
One of the speakers, Nidal Mahyani, who served on the now defunct Richmond Human Relations Commission, recalled the positive impact of the former commission on relations between different groups in Richmond and told the task force the new commission would likely have similar positive impact, she said. — JEREMY M. LAZARUS
