2020-01 minutesRichfield Human Rights Commission
Monthly Meeting Minutes
January 7th, 2020
Members Present: Brett Stursa, Heather Eastlund, Bob Mulcahy, Katie Goodemote, Carrie
Chillman, Michele Thompson, Sarah Musgrave, Kris Anderson, Todd Diede, Tasha
Ostendorf
Public Safety Liaison: Mike Flaherty
City Council Liaison:
School Board Liaison: Tim Pollis
1.Meeting called to order by Chair Brett Stursa at 6:33pm.
2.Motion to approve Agenda: Anderson/seconded Eastlund; motion carried.
3.Motion to approve Minutes: Diede/seconded Chillman, motion carried.
4.Open Public comment: None
5.Reports:
a.Chair’s report: MLK celebration at the Ordway on January 20. Info on Dept of
Human Rights website. Attendance report and inventory should be done yearly;
clarified they should be submitted to the city.
b.Vice Chair’s report: T-shirts not ordered by end of year, so orders this year will be
on this year’s budget.
c.Secretary’s report: Opened a dedicated RHRC Google Drive account. It’s
important to remember that it is an unofficial repository; the city maintains the
official repository. The city has been given access to the account. In the future as
you roll off of the commission if you have documents that you “own” in the
Google repository and think they should be preserved in either the official or
unofficial repository, work with the secretary to transfer ownership.
d.Public Safety Liaison report: No report.
e.School Board Liaison report: New board member, Allegra Smisek. Pollis likely to
roll off as our liaison and be replaced by another. Brief discussion of rewriting of
lunch debt policy. Starting new strategic planning starting for the district--come be
a part of the process! January 14 kick off. New district demographic information.
Free and reduced lunch population down under 60% for first. Could be that
people are choosing to not fill in the forms. DIscussion about lunch debt; actions
we can take include going to the strategic planning meeting and influence policy.
Pollis spoke of funding complications around free and reduced lunch. Discussion
of Dept of Human Rights conversation with the district and multi-year settlement
around reduction of disproportionate disciplinary action among disadvantaged
populations. Discussion about strategic planning process and importance of the
community voice. Discussion about how the community contributions in response
to the lunch debt issue may be distributed to ameliorate current debt.
6.New Business
a.Appreciation for outgoing commissioners: Thank you to Musgrave and Mulcahy.
Musgrave reported that gender-neutral bathrooms is now on Bloomington
agenda after she forwarded it to them.
b.Election of officers: Stursa, Chair. Eastlund, Vice-Chair. Diede, Secretary.
Goodemote, Social Media Liaison. Motion: Thompson/Anderson, seconded.
Motion carries.
c.Reschedule March, August, and November meetings: March meeting moved to
Thursday, March 5. Eastlund/Thompson seconded. Motion carried.
d.Parent shared recap: Anderson reported that it went well, was well attended
(most attendees they’ve ever had).
e.Racial covenants in Richfield: Trautmann and Stursa met with two members of
the Richfield Social Justice Community and a former RHRC commissioner
(Sunderlin) to talk about a series of events regarding racial covenants related to
Richfield. Events are being planned for April, May and June. Meeting again in
February to plan dates and locations.
f.Census (Eastlund, Ostendorf, Chillman, Diede): Diede reported that the city is
still planning how to attack the census from a complete count perspective--they
are looking for contacts in specific populations. More questions than answers at
this point about how to take advantage of those contacts. Discussion about
whether the school board should get involved. Discussion about efforts in the city
by bodies outside of the city (e.g., county)--the state has been involved and is
interested in recruiting census-takers. See 2020census.gov for more information
about becoming a census-taker--no minimum number of hours required.
g.Richfield Foundation grant: Stursa described ceremony providing funds. Site has
been secured for Indigenous People’s celebration in October.
h.2020 Work Plan: Stursa shared workplan, and suggested that next priority after
the list is human trafficking education. Discussion about adding land designation
to indigenous peoples celebration; Stursa to add to the plan with caveat that it
may be ambitious and could get pushed out to 2021. Each committee needs a
chair and volunteers. Census committee: Eastlund, Ostendorf, Diede (Stursa to
follow up with Chillman). Housing: Eastlund and Anderson. Indigienous Peoples
Day Celebration: Stursa, Ostendorf, Diede, Goodemote, Anderson.
Naturalization: Eastlund, Stursa, Diede. Proclamations: Stursa, Thompson, and
Eastlund. Penn Fest: Goodemote (Stursa to check with Chillman). Keeping up to
date on agendas from other community organizations: Anderson to organize.
R-DAP: Ostendorf. No committee for Outstanding Citizen (full commission). Will
talk about criteria in February or March. Racial covenants: Stursa, Diede,
Anderson, Eastlund, Ostendorf. Determine chairs next month. Role of chair:
schedule meetings, communication with chair, continue progress.
7.Unfinished Business
a.Housing committee (Eastlund, Chillman, Mulcahy, Stursa, Diede, Anderson):
Eastlund noted delay in report to the city of the Peoples with Capes discovery
efforts to determine most effective course of action.
b.Announcements/Open Forum: Mulcahy met with Ben Whalen to chat about
ranked choice voting. Whalen did some research with the city and a barrier is that
Richfield holds local elections in even-numbered years, which would interfere
with ranked-choice voting. That’s not insurmountable, but it is a huge barrier.
Mulcahy researching now with FairVote Minnesota to see what precedent exists.
Anderson described City of Minneapolis event on Feb 1: Community Connection
Conference. Anderson to send out more information. Musgrave relayed that
Sierra Club’s “Game of Zones” focused on zoning laws. Contact Musgrave for
more information.
8.Next meeting: February 4th, 2020, 6:30pm
9.Motion for adjournment: Eastlund/seconded Diede, motion carried. Meeting adjourned at
8:10pm.
Submitted by Bob Mulcahy 1/8/20
Updated and resubmitted by Todd Diede 1/21/20
Updated and resubmitted by Todd Diede 2/4/2020