Task Force on Racism Calls It Quits After 3rd Meeting

After meeting only three times and developing no program, Glendale’s fledgling task force on racism will stand aside and allow the city’s new community relations coordinator to carry on its work.

The task force, convened in January by Mayor Ginger Bremberg at the request of a Glendale rabbi, decided to make its 7:30 a.m. meeting Monday its last. The eight members of the group at the meeting offered to lend support as needed to Richard Reyes, appointed last month to the new position of community relations coordinator.

City Manager James M. Rez said last month that he created the post to show Glendale’s commitment to battling racism. Reyes’ duties, however, have not been defined.

Monday’s action surprised at least one member of the organization, who complained after the meeting that the task force had accomplished nothing. “I never really saw anything happening with this task force. . . . This guy gets appointed,” Robin Westmiller said, referring to Reyes, “then boom--it’s all done.”

Bremberg formed the group at the request of Glendale Rabbi Carole Meyers after an outbreak of anti-Semitic vandalism throughout the city. Bremberg said the task force, which was not officially sanctioned by the city, served its purpose.

The organization was never intended to take direct action, Bremberg asserted. “It was intended to ventilate, to plan, to create concepts of what could be done to make things work more smoothly.”

No ‘Puffery’ Intended

When asked in January about the newly formed organization, Bremberg said she hoped it would create “some kind of positive program” for the city. It was not created for public relations “puffery,” she said.

Meyers, a rabbi at the Temple Sinai of Glendale, said the quick demise of the organization did not surprise her. “It just never got off the ground,” she said. “At the moment, that’s about all I’m willing to say. . . . I decided several weeks ago to begin working around the task force.”

Despite Westmiller’s criticism, other task force members said they supported Monday’s action.

“I think it is a very positive move,” said David B. Simpson. “I think the fact that the city has officially sanctioned an office that has the power to address the same issues and more . . . is tremendous. It would be counterproductive for the task force to compete with him.”

At the close of Monday’s meeting, members agreed to give Reyes a one-page list of goals intended to promote the “many positive attributes of Glendale . . . so that when people think of Glendale they will think of the city with excellent schools . . . as opposed to associating Glendale with racism.”

The members suggested educational programs “that could be sponsored through the schools, churches, service clubs and city government.”

Moreover, task force members suggested a system be established to monitor community efforts to “erase bigotry and Glendale’s notorious racist image.”

Suggestion Discarded

Among the ideas discarded by the group was a suggestion last month by Westmiller to acknowledge the city’s “infamous past” by erecting a plaque at the site of the American Nazi Party’s former Glendale headquarters.

“If we don’t make a point of it, we are destined to continue with it,” Westmiller said after Monday’s meeting. “The worst thing you can do is cover up. . . . If we don’t attack the issue, even though it’s not a popular opinion, it’s not going to be solved. If we’re going to educate, let’s educate about everything. . . . Eliminate the secrecy, let’s get these people out in the open so they can be shown as total idiots.”

Bremberg lambasted Westmiller’s suggestion as “totally unacceptable.”

Reyes, who attended the final meeting of the racism task force, told members he is eager to implement its goals and will call on it as needed.