San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
INTERNAL STRIFE PARALYZES HUMAN RELATIONS PANEL
Bylaw changes, new members hoped to keep group functional
When county supervisors unanimously decided in May 2020 to revive the recently defunct Human Relations Commission, it seemed not a second too soon.
Ku Klux Klan and Nazi symbols had just appeared in East County. Hate crimes targeted Asians amid the pandemic. Just a year earlier, a White supremacist had committed a deadly shooting at a Poway synagogue.
And not even a week after the vote, the killing of George Floyd would spark protests over police brutality and racism across the country. Supervisors responded by creating an Office of Equity and Racial Justice, immediately tasking the new commission with defining its mission.
The commission’s goal was simple: “promote positive human relations, respect, and the integrity of every individual regardless of gender, religion, culture, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or citizenship status.”
Now, nearly four years later, that goal seems farther away than ever.
Dissension within its ranks has repeatedly prevented the commission from collectively working together. Members’ remarks and conf licts have brought scrutiny and engulfed meetings meant to highlight community issues.
Some have lost faith in the body and its leadership. Many routinely fail to appear for its meetings, leaving it with too few people present to do anything. Others have cut ties with it completely, leaving only 19 members on a panel that can host 31.
“I just believe it’s a very toxic commission,” said Estela De Los Rios, who was one of the commission’s vice chairs until she resigned last month. “I don’t see any hope in remedying that, and that’s really sad.”
While county supervisors have said little, calls for an overhaul and greater oversight by elected leaders have grown louder — especially as the commission prepares to meet this week for the first time in three months.
When they do, they will consider key membership changes intended to let them keep operating at all. But that alone may not be enough.
“The Human Relations Commission is not your standard commission,” said Ellen Nash, the commission’s chair. “We have to show up not just for the two-hour meeting, but we need to show up at spaces in our communities.”
Repeat conflicts, missed opportunities
In their first year, members of the revived commission did that. They called for high school sports leaders to address racism after a tortilla-throwing incident drew national attention. More recently, they worked with the county to hear updates from the state auditor on the troubling trend of deaths in county jails and helped facilitate a town hall on the issue last year.
But those accomplishments have been overshadowed by strife.
Back in 2022, the commission spent more than six months in heated debate over a member’s disparaging remarks about transgender people. Rather than vote to remove him, county supervisors recommended the commission update its bylaws and create a code of conduct so it could vote him out itself. It did update its bylaws but voted not to remove him.
That commissioner, pastor Dennis Hodges, remains on the panel. He declined to comment, citing his lawsuit against the city of San Diego over its decision not to reappoint him to a separate board following the controversy.
Then, last year, a Palestinian American commissioner, George Khoury, drew outrage from some Jewish leaders for comments criticizing Israel. In the aftermath, a colleague coming to his defense, Khaliq Raufi, made antisemitic, false remarks about Jews, prompting even more of an outcry. Neither responded to requests for comment for this story.
The controversy dominated meetings for months, sparking debate and ultimately leading to the resignation of three commissioners.
The issues those discussions centered on — antisemitism, nationhood, displacement, human rights — would gain far greater urgency just a few months later, with the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel and the war now being fought in Gaza.
Within days, the war’s effects ricocheted across the globe and sparked fierce new debate on the issues.
Since then, demonstrations by groups on both sides of the conflict have become routine. On Jan. 10, protesters disrupted San Diego’s State of the City address demanding a cease-fire.
Threats against Jews, Arabs and Muslims are up around the U.S., too. Just this month, six synagogues in San Diego County received bomb threats.
Yet the commission has been conspicuously silent, unable to revisit the discussion or act to bridge divides. Its last two monthly meetings were canceled because it couldn’t meet quorum — not enough members were showing up.
Commissioner Sarah Farouq, who is also a community organizer with the San Diego for Palestine Coalition, said she’s seen a dramatic uptick in Islamophobia and anti-arab sentiments in San Diego. But you wouldn’t know it from commission meetings, she said.
“There’s not been a single mention of that or even a concern,” she added.
‘So much internal strife’
The original county Human Relations Commission was defunded in the 1990s and formally dissolved in May 2018, before supervisors voted nearly two years later to bring it back.
That year, the FBI recorded the highest number of reported hate crimes in over a decade. That figure has continued to rise, and 2022 reports — the most recent data — broke the record for the most hate crimes recorded since the FBI started tracking them in 1991.
The commission was revived in the name of Leon L. Williams, who had originally established such a commission decades earlier as the county’s first Black supervisor. Then-supervisor Nathan Fletcher, who led the revival effort, showed a video of him meeting with Williams.
“A lot of the people who were on the commission I think were very devoted to it, and they all had a vision of their possible achievements,” Williams said in the video. “But we’ve got a way to go yet. And the work is on you now.”
Francine Maxwell, who chairs the grassroots discussion group Black Men and Women United San Diego, isn’t optimistic about that work. She has spoken at multiple commission meetings to ask that Williams’ name be removed, lest they tarnish it.
“We were expecting a great thing,” Maxwell told The San Diego Union-tribune. “These people are fighting each other. There’s so
much internal strife that you can’t even fix anything that’s going on outside that (commission).”
At the body’s most recent meetings — its regular meeting in September and a special meeting held in October — that strife was apparent, along with dysfunction due to procedural problems. Only two of the eight votes taken between the two meetings passed.
September’s began with a presentation from local aid groups on the migrant crisis at the U.s.mexico border. Commissioners suggested efforts like writing a letter to Border Patrol or arranging a visit to the border — but couldn’t act on any of them because it was not an action item.
“Nothing happened from that,” Farouq said. “That was a big disappointment for me.”
Then commissioners voted on a procedural step toward restructuring their bylaws to strengthen vetting of new members and require anti-bias training — an effort in response to the recent antisemitic comments by a member.
They unanimously agreed to have their bylaws subcommittee take up the issue. But the meeting then quickly devolved into bickering over whether to stop appointing new members in the meantime.
Some called for pausing appointments, which may be made by supervisors, fellow commissioners and certain community organizations. Others called for naming a rabbi — there were none among the panel’s three other religious leaders.
Neither camp won out. The motion to pause appointments was voted on twice and both times failed. The commission also could not vote to appoint the rabbi because it had not been properly agendized.
Commissioners began to trickle out as the meeting pushed past its scheduled end time.
Then, after public comment, in a reflection of the growing divisions on the panel, Vice Chair Eleanor Evans called for a vote of no confidence in Nash, its chair — but that was shot down, too, for not being an agenda item.
“It was a bloody meeting,” Nicole Murray Ramirez, one of the first commissioners appointed in 2020, recalled later. “Nothing was accomplished, and Robert’s Rules (of Order) were thrown out the door.”
Although he had long pushed to revive the commission, Murray Ramirez said it should be dissolved unless serious changes are made. “There’s such a deep divide,” he said. “This commission cannot continue as is.”
That proved practically true the following month at a special emergency meeting to appoint new members. With 11 votes needed and only 12 commissioners present, it failed to fill any vacancies.
Working to solve the problems
The full commission has not met since, but its bylaws subcommittee has — twice in October and again earlier this month — to discuss restructuring the commission and diversifying its membership.
They have also proposed reducing the number of commissioners, changing quorum requirements and creating incentives to boost participation, such as reimbursing for travel or child care — commissioners are unpaid volunteers.
“We need commissioners who
are dedicated to doing the work and not just showing up for a twohour commission meeting,” Nash said.
The commission expects to vote on the bylaw changes at its meeting Tuesday, barring another cancellation. Any changes would then need to be approved by county supervisors.
They would not be the first efforts to improve the problems on the commission since its revival.
The county has already hired two separate consultants to work with the body.
The first, Nonprofit Solutions, was awarded a $50,000 contract in 2021 to serve as an “as-needed facilitator for diversity and inclusion, conflict resolution and strategic planning” during meetings.
The second, Essential Partners, got a $74,200 contract in 2022 — months after Hodges’ antitransgender remarks — to help it build a more constructive culture. The firm was tasked with developing interventions, focus groups and community listening sessions and providing training to help the panel “be an example of promoting positive human relations,” according to the contract.
Nash hoped these trainings would help commissioners better navigate their differences, but when the consultant was first introduced at their January 2023 meeting, some raised concerns about its diversity and worried it could worsen divisions. Only about a dozen members attended each session, Nash said — the training wasn’t mandatory.
In fiscal year 2023, which ran from July 2022 through June 2023, the commission held just two community meetings, according to the most recent county budget report. It also held eight general meetings and 11 subcommittee meetings and canceled three additional meetings.
Nash hopes to schedule more community events this year.
‘It continues to fall short’
“Moving forward, it is crucial that the Board of Supervisors maintain closer oversight over citizen commissions,” Supervisor Joel Anderson wrote in a 2022 oped defending Hodges, whom he had appointed to the commission, following the controversy.
Then last year, Anderson said the antisemitic comments by Raufi — whom he had also appointed — “highlight the urgent need to focus on education, bridge building and to advocate for tolerance.”
Yet he and other supervisors have been slow to act on those sentiments.
Asked to comment on the work of the commission thus far, supervisors
either declined to comment or limited their responses to prepared statements that did not answer the Union-tribune’s questions.
Anderson’s office suggested Chair Nora Vargas’ staff “may have more insight on the county’s vision and goals for the Human Relations Commission.”
“The Human Relations Commission has a vital role in promoting positive relationships and safeguarding everyone in our county,” Vargas said in an emailed statement. “Success for the HRC means making our community feel more connected, inclusive and resolving conflicts. As the HRC grows and works through their challenges, my hope is that it will bring people together, fostering unity, understanding and respect for everyone in San Diego County.”
Supervisor Terra Lawson-remer said members of the commission should stand against all forms of hate, whether antisemitic, Islamophobic, ANTI-LGBTQ+ or racist.
“They are important contributors to our county’s focus on addressing issues of equity and racial justice,” Lawson-remer added, acknowledging that it’s not an easy task for volunteers, “especially during the startup years.”
Both Vargas and Lawson-remer declined to comment on the commission’s recent inactivity and inability to address pressing county issues.
Desmond declined to comment altogether.
Many commissioners themselves are less circumspect.
In her resignation letter last month, De Los Rios contended that the county should be paying more attention and called the commission “a disaster.”
Farouq said the commission needs to start being very intentional about where it’s putting its energy and focus.
Former commissioner Pedro Anaya said the commission’s job isn’t to be a moral compass but to create safe spaces for difficult conversations.
“Sometimes you just have to give people the opportunity to listen to each other, learn from each other — even when we don’t agree — and have some faith that by doing that, people will come to an understanding,” Anaya said.
Kate Clark served on the commission since its founding as a representative of Jewish Family Service of San Diego until this month. She said in November that the commission “must make key reforms to deliver on its mission and to have any impact on critical issues with local implications, especially immigration, antisemitism and LGBTQ+ issues.
“Previous conversations on these topics have not been productive,” she added. “At a time when the commission is needed more than ever and could be making a positive impact, it continues to fall short of its goals.”
‘A welcome new voice’
Earlier this month, county supervisors approved the appointment of Rabbi Jason Nevarez to replace Clark as Jewish Family Service’s representative on the commission — a decision the organization said was made “based on Kate’s current capacity.” She and JFS declined to comment further on her replacement.
“JFS continues to believe strongly in the mission of the HRC and remains committed to making our county a better place to live for all,” said Michael Hopkins, its CEO. “We know Rabbi Nevarez will be a welcome new voice of this vision.”
Nevarez, a senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel, San Diego’s largest and oldest Jewish congregation, is no stranger to the commission’s conflicts. He was among the dozens of community leaders who signed on to an open letter calling for Hodges’ removal in 2022.
“San Diego needs us to come together to do the work of the community and needs us to be in spaces that we can foster relationships and build on them so that we can strengthen the county,” Nevarez said in an interview this month.
Nevarez was also one of the local Jewish leaders who traveled to Israel last month to San Diego’s sister city, which suffered some of the brunt of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
He said his focus on the commission will be about ensuring San Diegans can build and foster relationships to better local communities.
“I’m not adding to the vitriol,” Nevarez said. “My goal is to do my small part to help move the HRC away from that and into the effective, on-the-ground work that it was meant to do.”
Adeem Ismaeil, who was appointed the International Rescue Committee’s designee on the commission in 2021, is also hopeful.
“The commission has been evolving, despite the ups and downs (it’s been) faced with throughout the past years,” Ismaeil said.
A junior at Westview High School, 16-year-old Milan Shah joined the commission as a youth representative in September and is excited to positively impact San Diego.
“The fact that San Diego has a commission that is focused on inclusion and empowerment I think is really, really amazing … and that we can bring these different perspectives to light and vote on issues that are very relevant to San Diego,” Shah said.
Shah hopes to use his experience amplifying youth voices through his nonprofit Reel Voices to bring a unique younger perspective to the commission.
It’s the initiative of commissioners like Shah that Nash hopes can unite them with a shared goal.
“The work of the commission is more important than ever,” Nash said. “Once we get the bylaws in place, once we get those seats filled … with more caution and more vetting, I think we will have a thriving, moving commission.”