A SNAPSHOT OF US TODAY
Oversight of the City’s Human Relations Commission is provided by eleven members of a Board of Commissioners, who serve at the pleasure of the Mayor. Staff people and others meet once a month with our commissioners, and we render periodic reports to them, as well as to both the Mayor’s Office and to the City Council’s Education and Neighborhoods Committee.
The Commission's professional staff is led by an Executive Director, Rabbi Allen I. Freehling; Frances (Ellie) Sears is our Deputy Director of Administrative Services, who supervises four persons; and, our Deputy Director of Field Services, Patricia M. Villaseņor, guides a Field Team of 9 men and women.
We interact on a regular basis with a considerable number of public servants, who labor in the Mayor’s Office, and with each member of City Council, as well as their respective City Hall and District personnel. We assist all of them in responding to the needs of a vast number of Angelenos.
In addition, we expend a great deal of time and energy as we create and/or participate in collaborative partnerships with a number of City departments, other governmental agencies, and several non-profit organizations, because we are all determined to improve the human condition of every person who lives and works in Los Angeles.
These efforts of ours are particularly important in the case of the City’s largest uniformed services, Police and Fire, due to their sheer size and the high volume of contact that exists between law enforcement officers and firefighters and the public-at-large whom they serve.
Among the departments, which are currently relying on us to one degree or another are:
Los Angeles Fire Department – Rather than LAFD’s entering into agreements with external contractors, some time ago we were asked to assess its human relations training needs, as well as the relevancy, accuracy and effectiveness of its existing courses. Then we revised those that needed modification, designed new courses; now, we deliver training programs intended to help mitigate hostile workplace conditions, build LAFD’s human relations library of resource material, research training guidelines and other agencies’ successful curricula, create both short-term and long-term training plans, and coordinate these efforts with the department’s personnel services so as to ensure LAFD’s compliance with its equal employment opportunities and human resources mandates, etc.
Los Angeles Police Department – We help to develop and then join others in offering instruction within the context of conflict management training and other insightful courses for both recruits and veteran members of the force. Also, when incidents occur, which could enflame public opinion and possibly cause civil unrest, we are asked to help calm potentially stormy seas. It is for this reason that LAPD and we are in constant communication, why we are asked by LAPD’s senior management team to monitor public demonstrations, and why we participate in every LAPD-organized community forum. Also, we are involved in many productive collaborative efforts, which regularly bring together members of our staff and our colleagues from the County’s Commission on Human Relations, as well as from the community relations sections of LAPD, the Sheriff’s Department, the State Attorney General’s Office, the U.S. Department of Justice, et al. in an attempt to help reduce stress and violence in our community.
Housing Authority – We provide on-going, in-depth guidance for the benefit of both inspectors and all residents in an effort to create a climate of trust and understanding where ever and whenever it does not currently exist within any and all public housing sites.
Department of Neighborhood Empowerment – We accept invitations proffered by almost all Neighborhood Councils to serve as the “Final Decision-Maker” when their election results are challenged. We also provide leadership development training for many boards’ newly named members. And, when boards are crippled, as a result of seemingly irreconcilable disputes, we offer our facilitation services that help Neighborhood Councils’ leaders and stakeholders to resolve their differences.
Board of Public Works – Wishing to more effectively open up channels of communication between its personnel and those Angelenos whom they serve, the management of this department asked us to provide specialized training to a group of its staff members, who are now sharing with their peers much that they have learned in dialogue sessions and in their accompanying members of our Field Team as they shoulder their diverse responsibilities all over the community. Based on the success of this effort, this partnership process will be replicated here from this time onward and possibly in other departments, as well.
Los Angeles Unified School District – Stemming from a Memorandum of Understanding, which links LAUSD and us in a carefully arranged collaboration, we respond to calls for assistance that come to us from superintendents and principals, who are increasingly dependent on us to intervene when struggles break out between students of conflicting cultures. It is our purpose to unclog communication channels so as to reduce hostility among young people for the sake of campus and community harmony, and to help devise and implement strategies, which ultimately help administrators, faculty members, pupils and their parents to establish a climate of civility throughout Los Angeles.
A Most Particular Challenge Today – Of great concern to everyone now is the crescendo of community violence being promulgated via the criminal activity of gangs throughout Los Angeles. In an attempt to discourage any further growth of gangs and to assist in finally reducing their influence, we are concentrating on initiating and/or interacting with coalition cohorts, who are focusing on prevention and intervention initiatives.
As an example, we took the lead in establishing the Joint City/County Juvenile Justice Task Force, which has launched holistic programs involving students, parents and teachers in Van Nuys, Pacoima and Canoga Park high schools and their “feeder” elementary and middle schools. Elsewhere, we are currently facilitating the Watts Gang Task Force, the Harbor Gateway Interagency Task Force, the Cadillac/Robertson Safety Task Force, and the Venice Community Safety and Development Collaborative.
Additional Responsibilities. - Emulating our work with a considerable number of City Council Members and Deputy Mayors, and their respective staff members, all of whom have called upon us to help reduce management-employees stresses and tensions, we stand ready to be of assistance to others when they wish to take advantage of the ability we have developed to facilitate retreats, which improve workplace environments.
We also function as partners with the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, and - when invited by Council Members - we help to mitigate intergroup problems, which are experienced by their constituents, since we are prepared to function as facilitators for as long as is necessary to assist in completely laying to rest those disputes.
And, at the direction of the Mayors Office, the Commission for Children, Youth and Their Families, the Commission on the Status of Women and we have been implementing ways in which together we may administratively function more economically and efficiently when we cooperate with one another. As an example, our particular focus is on assisting our colleagues in Budget formulation and adherence; additionally, we provide them clerical support by creating minutes of our three commissions’ board sessions and committees meetings. Meanwhile, we are all examining our respective programs and projects to determine which ones will be enriched when our staff members interact with each other knowing that certain situations will be enhanced when we offer one another this kind of collaborative assistance.
CONCLUSION
The Human Relations Commission remains steadfastly determined to repair any piece of the fabric of our society, which is frayed and tattered, so as to fully actualize the potential, which our community's extraordinary multiplicity of individuals and peoples offers to all of us, and to advance the cause of humanity that is found in so many and various forms here in the City of Los Angeles!