Activists Plan Strategy Meeting on Saving 2 Key Social Panels

Dozens of activists and several community groups have planned a strategy session Monday night on saving two long-established county panels, the Human Relations Commission and the Commission on the Status of Women, which have been proposed for elimination to help balance the county’s huge budget deficit.

The proposal has sparked an outcry from many community leaders, who say women, minorities and other disenfranchised groups would lose valuable allies.

Jeff Letourneau, an activist for labor interests and gay rights, said of the Human Relations Commission: “There is no place else for most minority or persecuted groups to go. It is the single vehicle we’ve been able to use over time.”

Letourneau, who is helping to organize Monday’s event, said a who’s-who of the county’s activists and social-welfare workers will attend the session, including representatives of labor, gay and religious groups, school board members and victims of hate crimes.

The community groups hope to agree on actions that will persuade the Board of Supervisors to restore money for the panels, whose combined budgets total more than $430,000. A final county budget is to be adopted Aug. 27.

The strategy session will be held at 7 p.m. Monday at the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union Hall, 515 N. Cabrillo Park Drive, Suite 205, Santa Ana.

For information, contact Letourneau or Angela Keefe at (714) 542-3119.