Hartford
Last year, the Selectboard and School Board jointly formed a Committee on Racial Inequality to produce recommendations on how to address such problems in the community.
Last month, the committee submitted a list of recommendations that would create a political infrastructure — a standing committee and a multi-year strategic plan — designed to make Hartford more inclusive for people of color.
Many of the recommendations, such as cultural competency training for town officials and staff, drew little comment during a Selectboard workshop on Tuesday, but some members questioned a recommended policy that, as drafted by the Committee on Racial Inequality, would compel officials to confront any “verbal or written expressions, actions or transactions” that “reflect a prejudicial orientation” by calling attention to the comments during a public meeting of the Selectboard.
That didn’t sit well with Selectboard members Dennis Brown and Dick Grassi, who said they supported the broader goals of the recommendations, but that elected officials shouldn’t be required to police each other.
“I strongly feel that my boss is the citizens, the voters,” Brown said, according to CATV video of the workshop. “If I do something that dumb, come next election time, I won’t be asked back. … This (policy) can create division amongst us as well. So I’m very uncomfortable with that.”
In an effort to gain unanimous support for the policy, the Selectboard re-drafted the proposal so that instead of being required to confront prejudiced comments publicly, members instead are “encouraged” to confront the issue by privately notifying the chairs of the Selectboard and the racial inequality committee of the comments.
Selectwoman Kim Souza suggested using the word “encouraged.”
The change was met, later, with mixed emotions by John Hall, the chairman of the Committee on Racial Inequality.
“We want every Selectboard member to be aware of the seriousness of that kind of discrimination, and to consider that in each and every action that they take,” Hall said during a Friday interview.
Hall said that while he supported the stronger language of the original proposal, he also values the potential of a unanimous show of support from the Selectboard. He said he knows that Grassi and Brown are not alone in their opinion.
“Even though it’s a minority opinion against the original language, that opinion represents a sizable contingent of the town. … So I got that,” Hall said. “It was a little disappointing for me, that there would be a sizable contingent of the town that would not in good faith accept the language as it was written. I think that means there’s a lot of work to do in terms of educating people. But I understand that we’re not there yet.”
On Tuesday, members of the public were divided on the question of a self-policing Selectboard.
Mark Bielecki, of White River Junction, said during the workshop that the original proposal “set off a bunch of alarm bells in my head.”
He said the policy would violate the constitutional right to free speech.
“This is America. Not East Germany, folks. … By requiring people to report what you said, you are making it so that people cannot talk,” he said. “I find it offensive that somebody would come up with this idea.”
But others, such as Cyndi Salazar, also of White River Junction, told the Selectboard that public officials should be held to a high standard.
“If they are out in the community or in the community at large they are still representatives of this town,” she said, “and as such there is a certain decorum and dignity that should be adhered to in terms of not violating (those principles with) any discriminatory language or discriminatory actions.”
On Wednesday night, racial inclusiveness also was on the agenda of the Hartford School Board, which received a similar set of recommendations that also seek to introduce more culturally diverse perspectives into the classroom curricula.
School Board member Peter Merrill, who is chairman of that panel’s policy committee, said he, School Board Chairman Kevin Christie and Superintendent Tom DeBalsi were engaged in preliminary conversations about how to accomplish the goals of the recommendations from the Committee on Racial Inequality.
“We haven’t started that work yet but we’re talking about it,” Merrill said.
Hall said on Friday that he believes school district officials are making a good faith effort on the issue, though he expected the process of adoption to be slower than for the Selectboard.
For the Selectboard, the new language, and the rest of the committee recommendations, likely will come to a vote during its next regularly scheduled meeting, scheduled for 6 p.m. on April 24 at the Town Hall.
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.