BACKGROUND: NorthIowaToday.com has reported since 2010 that Mason City Mayor Eric Bookmeyer lead a behind-the-scenes agenda at City Hall of dismantling Human Rights in Mason City, beginning with his 2009 campaign and culminating in success in 2013. With the help of a city council who agreed with his agenda (Alex Kuhn, Scott Tornquist, Janet Solberg, Jean Marinos, Travis Hickey and John Lee) City Hall was successful in defunding the Mason City Human Rights department, thereby leaving a Human Rights Commission rudderless and without ability to fact find and perform its customary functions outside of a monthly one hour meeting.
The following is a letter sent to the Globe Gazette on July 26th and sent to the NIT newsroom on July 29th, 2013. The letter is from the League of Iowa Human and Civil Rights Agencies:
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We have watched with dismay as the Mason City Administration and City Council have chosen to in essence defund and decimate the core functions and values of the Mason City Human Rights Commission (“MCHRC”). This action does a great disservice to the persons living in Mason City and in Cerro Gordo County, as well as others who work in your area and those who pass through or seek public accommodations.
At the helm of the MCHRC, was a strong civil rights advocate who had served the community tirelessly as the director of the MCHRC for over forty (40) years. He mentored us and many like us who serve at small local agencies throughout the State of Iowa. He helped many in Mason City, in Cerro Gordo County, and those who work in and traverse through your fair city and county. The lack of a fully-functioning local civil rights agency, simply because an arbitrary population number has dropped below a certain benchmark, has and will continue to deprive the persons in your area of the best and most-responsive service in the area of civil rights and the prevention of discrimination, as well as outreach and educational efforts in the area of human rights.
Local agencies benefit their communities in myriad ways that a larger state-run agency cannot. For example, a local agency has the benefit of being able to personally interview a person complaining about discriminatory treatment, as well as any and all witnesses involved in a given complaint in a convenient, local setting; a state-centered agency sends out rote questionnaires which are often inapplicable to a given situation, rather than personally interviewing the involved persons. Local agencies have personal subpoena power in non-housing cases, which means that if a witness fails to cooperate, a local agency can require a witness to appear to give a statement or interview with the local human or civil rights agency, at which the information gathered is the result of more than mere words, but also body language. An in-person witness interview allows follow-up
questions to glean important information from the person being interviewed; the state agency does not have this type of subpoena power for non-housing cases.
Moreover, local agencies know the fabric and mosaic of their communities, and can plan appropriate and timely outreach and educational events that are truly applicable to the cultural norms and mores of a city and region, or in reaction to an occurrence in the community. This innate knowledge is only possible when one lives in a community, city, and county, and is impossible to acquire when one lives and works in a state capitol city, and only visits a city occasionally for a training event or mediation.
In sum, local human and civil rights agencies, and their directors, investigators, paralegals, assistants, and other staff members are the ones best-suited to most cost-effectively and efficiently resolve civil rights complaints in their local jurisdictions, through a more-thorough and more-personal investigation, and via a more personal touch than a state agency, which, with its hundreds of cases each year, cannot possibly possess, despite its best intentions. Whether taxes are spent on a state or local civil rights agency, tax dollars are still spent on civil rights enforcement, education, and outreach. Instead of paying for state employees to drive out from Des Moines, local agencies may use their connections within the community – its community organizations, churches, youth groups, other non-profit organizations, etc. – to assess a given local civil rights challenge and address it within the societal environment of a given city and county. That knowledge is not found at a state agency – it lies solely within local agencies.
The fully-staffed and funded Mason City Human Rights Commission was a standard to which other local agencies aspired, and for which the persons in Mason City, Cerro Gordo County, and those who work in these areas, and seek public accommodations in this area, should be extremely grateful. We hope that city officials will reconsider the value of local human and civil rights agencies and fully-fund the Mason City Human Rights Commission for the benefit of the State of Iowa and to prevent further discrimination.
Sincerely,
League of Iowa Human and Civil Rights Agencies, Inc. By: Karen Mackey, President
Jamie Anderson, Vice-President Crystal Schrader, Secretary Tamra L. Walz-Madsen, Treasurer
