Kristy Milligan
City Attorney Chris Melcher has scheduled a closed executive session today with City Council to talk about “proposed changes” to the ordinance that resurrected the controversial Human Relations Commission.
The agenda doesn’t provide any more information.
Kristy Milligan, executive director of the Citizens Project, which helped revive the commission, said Melcher has “identified some areas that may or may not in his estimation cause problems.”
Milligan said she only has a “vague sense” of what those issues are.
“I vaguely think that there’s something about the way the ordinance would apply to city employees that from Melcher’s standpoint is problematic,” she said. “I don’t know the nuances of it, but that’s my understanding of it.”
At this point, Milligan said, the Citizens Project is not concerned and has no reason to believe that the ordinance would be significantly modified.
“We fully trust in City Council to make the right decisions to strengthen and bolster the Human Relations Commission,” she said.
“Whatever the origins of the closed inspection of the ordinance, whatever the origins might be, I think that everyone is interested in this point in ensuring the continuation and the integrity of the Human Relations Commission.”
“The whole is made up of the sum of it’s parts”
In Colorado Springs, there is great disparity in the equality of the “parts” ie: those segments of the population that make up the “whole” of the city.
Considering the rather fumble-footed start this administration has had in almost every matter brought before them, keeping a sensitive issue such as how ‘human relations’ will be dealt with, seems inappropriate at this time.
Particularly at a time when the public is so sensitive to ‘trust’ and a return to ‘open and transparent’ government even if keeping the process open is akin to watching sausage being made !
The city has some good and decent people on council but their performance, and that of Bach, has not proven up to the task of building faith with the public to a point the community can move forward.