Compton to Create Office for Racial Concerns

After nearly two months of simmering racial tension between blacks and Latinos, the Compton City Council has agreed to create an Office of Human Relations.

Latino activists had requested a human relations office that would deal exclusively with Latino concerns. City Council members, however, decided that the office should be concerned with all ethnic groups after Samoan residents complained about possibly being excluded, council members said.

Other changes sought by Latinos--including a tougher affirmative action plan and creation of a civilian police review board--were delayed or met with strident objections during a sometimes acrimonious meeting Tuesday night.

After more than two hours in the pre-council meeting workshop, Latino activist Pedro Pallan had mixed feelings on what was the first meeting between city leaders and the United Coalition of Compton. “Well, I’m optimistic,” said Pallan, president of the coalition.

The Latino coalition was formed after a videotape, depicting a black police officer beating a Latino teen-ager July 29, was released to the media. The tape, repeatedly broadcast on local television stations, sparked several demonstrations in front of City Hall last month by Latinos who accused the city of racism.

The harsh words of those protests left some city officials, almost all of whom are black, with lingering bitterness.

“The City Council, the personnel board and everybody here is being accused of discriminating against Latinos,” City Clerk Charles Davis said before storming out of the workshop. “I think you’re trying to intimidate this council, and I think it’s wrong.”

Davis’ reference to the city’s personnel board reflected the major focus of tension between the two groups: perceived racism in the city’s hiring practices.

Coalition members presented officials with statistics, put together by the city for a federal commission, showing that since 1986 the number of Latinos in the city’s work force has hovered around 10%. During the same period, blacks have held about 78% of the jobs. Between the 1980 and 1990 censuses, however, Compton’s black population dropped by 21% and the number of Latinos rose by 131%. City officials now estimate the Latino population at 51%.

Assistant City Manager Paul Richards countered with his own statistics showing that Latino employees outnumber blacks working for some city contractors and in many of the area’s shopping plazas. That comparison angered most coalition members.

“You’re mixing red apples with green apples,” Pallan said. “We’re talking about public and private institutions. They’re different.”

Mayor Omar Bradley also became upset during the exchange, saying, “If you don’t want to give us credit where we have made strides, then you’re not negotiating in good faith.”

The city’s promise to revise its 20-year-old affirmative action plan to include target dates by which more Latino employees should be hired was put on hold by the council after both sides said they needed time to study the lengthy document.

Other changes sought by Latinos, such as creation of a civilian police review board and a request that the coalition be given the power to appoint members to the city’s boards and commissions, met with strident opposition.

Councilwoman Marcine Shaw said she was unwilling to give up her “hard-earned right” to make appointments, which are made only by the council. Then Shaw and other council members objected to a police review board, largely because the coalition said the board should have the authority to discipline police misconduct.

“My husband was a police officer,” Councilwoman Jane D. Robbins said. “So you know I’m not going to be happy with that.”

The Office of Human Relations was reluctantly agreed to by coalition members and unanimously approved by the council. Both sides agreed to meet again, in hopes of finding common ground on some of the lingering issues.