[Peace-discuss] Champaign City Council ignores commissioned recommendations

[Karen Medina]

Peace Discuss,

I agree with Laurie about the Chamapaign City Council and I think there is a real danger here. For these reports, the groups were specifically asked by the City of Champaign to look into these issues and come up with a recommendation. Perhaps this act of commissioning is being used as a stalling tactic. Even if it is not intentionally used in this way, stalling is the net effect: the public is asked to wait patiently. With the waiting, we run the risk of letting these important issues move lower on the public's "to do" list because there is not much to be done for an entire year. The stalling works against us, but the fruits of the stall are our best weapons.

We really need to make sure the public has access to these commissioned reports. The reports have been well thought out and the arguements well made; much better than any opposing arguments made by the City Council members. In fact, these reports are the very tool with which we can expose the faulty arguments of the members.

-karen medina

---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 11:24:19 -0500
>From: "Laurie at advancenet.net" <laurie at advancenet.net>  
>Subject: RE: [Peace-discuss] Re: [Peace] Champaign City Council Votes 6-3 Against Section 8   
>To: <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
>
>Well just to prove that the City Council's propensity to ignore the
>recommendations of its commissions that it does not agree with is not
>discriminatorily directed to the Human Relations Commission or even the
>Police Community Committee's recommendations, one should note that the
>Champaign City Council also rejected the Liquor Advisory Board's
>recommendations that they had worked on for over a year and even
>suggestively hinted that that Board be abolished.
>
>One really needs to recognize and accept the fact that except for some very
>ideological issues in which the conservative establishment movers and
>shakers (i.e., landlords, developers, commercial property owners, bars, and
>the University) push for, the Champaign City Council rarely does anything
>more than rubberstamp the recommendations coming from City Staff and the
>City Manager.  Most of the population of the City of Champaign are content
>to let the City Staff and elected officials getaway with relinquishing
>control to the movers and shakers; in fact they even actively support and go
>along with supporting these actions by their elected officials and the
>unelected staff.
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net [mailto:peace-discuss-
>> bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Karen Medina
>> Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 9:59 AM
>> To: Peace Discuss List
>> Subject: [Peace-discuss] Re: [Peace] Champaign City Council Votes 6-3
>> Against Section 8
>> 
>> John Wason wrote:
>> >   I reiterate....it seems like the very definition of
>> >   futility to serve on any of the City of Champaign's
>> >   "Human Relations" type commissions.
>> 
>> John is very right.
>> 
>> The Champaign City Council ignored the Human Rights Council's
>> suggestions after a year of work on the wording regarding the Section
>> 8.
>> 
>> The City Council also ignored all the work that was done for the
>> Citizen's Police Review Board, which was more than 1 years worth of
>> work.
>> 
>> -karen medina
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