‘This will be difficult work.’ Lexington commission on racism releases recommendations
Adding civilians to an officer disciplinary review committee, creating a full-time housing czar and adding a citizen’s advocate to help people file complaints against police are some of the more than 54 long-awaited recommendations of Lexington’s Commission for Racial Justice and Equality.
The more than 70-person volunteer commission, co-chaired by Roszalyn Akins and Gerald Smith, released its full 68-page report Friday. Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton created the commission in June and tasked the group with coming up with concrete recommendations to address systemic racism in law enforcement, housing, education and health care.
Gorton created the commission in response to weeks of marches and protests in downtown Lexington in the wake of the most recent police-involved killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May and Breonna Taylor in Louisville in March.
“This is our moment. And we are not going to let it go,” Gorton said at a press conference at city hall on Friday announcing the release of the recommendations. “This will be a road map for our future.”
Akins said the commission members worked for months on the recommendations.
“It is our hope this is just the first step,” Akins said.
Gorton said her first step would be to make the commission permanent. That will take the blessing of the council. By making the Racial Equality and Justice Commission a permanent part of the government, the commission’s recommendations will not be forgotten or sit on a shelf, she said.
“This will be difficult work,” Gorton said. “This is going to require all of our citizens, not just a handful.”
Smith said the document will serve as a “measurement” of what the city has done to address racial inequality over time. Also included in the report is a six-page history of racism in Lexington, which features a timeline of previous reports and previous demands from the Black community.
The report does not pull punches. It’s demanding real, systemic change, Gorton said.
“Commission members have put together an in-depth report that pulls off our city’s rose-colored glasses and takes a hard look at the racism that holds us back,” Gorton said Friday.
Gorton said the more than 54 recommendations will be separated into categories: What the city administration can address, what the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council needs to change through ordinances and what may need to be addressed through state law.
Many of the recommendations will take funding. Several recommendations call for the creation of new city-level positions. Gorton said Friday she is optimistic that nonprofits, companies and other government agencies will want to be part of some of those changes and will be able to help with funding.
Any recommendations that involve city-only funding cannot be addressed until the next fiscal year, which starts July 1.
The commission was divided into five subcommittees: Law Enforcement, Justice and Accountability; Housing and Gentrification; Racial Equity; Education and Economic Opportunities; and Health Disparities. Those subcommittees met for several months and held several town hall meetings to gather public input.
Law Enforcement
More than 25 recommendations came out of the law enforcement subcommittee.
Some of the proposals include:
- Add three citizens to an internal police disciplinary review board that is currently made up of high-ranking police officials.
- Create a civilian review board to investigate complaints against police. That board would be independent but mirror the department’s public integrity unit, which investigates internal complaints.
- Create a citizen ombudsman who can help citizens file complaints against a police officer.
- Require officers wear body-worn cameras. Review body-camera footage periodically to look for bias in policing.
- Create an explicit anti-retaliation policy that prohibits the department and officers from retaliating against anyone who files a complaint.
- Increase funding for police recruitment and training.
- Enhance and establish bias training and evaluation procedures.
- Establish an office of accountability, monitoring and equity to monitor trends, such as the use of force and disproportionate policing in one geographic area.
- Establish a 911 diversion plan that would train 911 dispatchers to screen calls and send non-emergent, non-violent mental illness and other calls to non-law enforcement or the fire department.
The group also recommended that the Fayette County Attorney and Fayette Commonwealth’s Attorney review the use of persistent felony offender charges, which can result in over-incarceration of minorities.
Smith said during a press conference Friday afternoon that not all members of the law enforcement subcommittee agreed with all the recommendations.
For example, the citizen panel that would investigate complaints against police officers is problematic, several members of the subcommittee wrote in a minority report. Some of those concerns centered on who would be responsible for training the panel’s members on how to conduct an investigation. Other professional groups have citizens on their oversight or disciplinary boards, but they have limited “investigative powers,” wrote those on the subcommittee.
Two members of law enforcement on the subcommittee also objected to a 911 diversion program, particularly if it would lead to a decrease in police department or sheriff’s department funding. Instead, Fayette County Sheriff Kathy Witt and Lexington Assistant Police Chief Brian Maynard recommended expanding the current community paramedicine program through the fire department, which handles non-emergent phone calls that do not require an ambulance.
The commission also recommends banning no-knock warrants, Smith said. Smith and Akins added a ban on no-knock warrants to the law enforcement subcommittee’s recommendations after they saw no-knock warrants were not addressed. Gorton had issued a moratorium on no-knock warrants earlier this summer. Louisville has since banned the practice.
Education, economic opportunities
- Build an integrated system of early childhood education with the Fayette County Public Schools, Head Start and other licensed child care providers to expand quality preschool to all children in Fayette County.
- Create meaningful after-school opportunities for youth.
- Create a city position that can coordinate investments in education.
- Increase the goal of city spending on minority business contracts from 10 to 15 percent. Implement penalties and rewards if those goals are met are not met.
- Establish spending goals by specific racial/ethnic minorities.
- Complete a disparity study, which would determine how many minority business firms are in the area.
- Create a minority-owned business database.
- Develop and identify funding sources to help minority-owned businesses grow and expand.
The city of Lexington reported earlier this year that 20 percent of its total contracting was spent with minority businesses. The vast majority of those are white women and veterans. Less than one percent were Black-owned businesses. UK only spends 5 percent of its total contracting on minority-owned businesses, far short of its goal of 10 percent. The university has said it is working on a new tracking system to determine how many businesses are Black-owned.
Housing, Gentrification
- Create an Office of Housing Advocate to provide oversight of all housing programs.
- Do more to stop predatory investors that prey on people in gentrifying neighborhoods.
- Invest more in gentrifying neighborhoods and make keeping minority-owned businesses in those neighborhoods a priority.
Health Disparities
- Hire a Community Health Worker to help connect underserved minorities with health care providers. The worker can help coordinate neighborhood-based services, such as periodic mobile services to bring health care services to neighborhoods.
- Improve food access and food options in minority neighborhoods by starting mobile markets and other food programs in food deserts.
- Create more partnerships, scholarships and pipelines to recruit more Black people into nursing, medical school and other healthcare-related fields.
Racial Equity
- Implement racial equity impact assessments, which can determine how a budgetary or legislative policy decision affects racial and ethnic groups. Those assessments would help leaders determine equity implications of local decisions.
- Establish a job training and community center.
- Establish a citywide or neighborhood-based summer youth job and apprentice program as part of the a job training and community center.
This story was originally published October 23, 2020 at 12:35 PM.
