Human Relations Commission Plans Prop. 187 Hearing : Meeting: Misinformation about the voter-approved initiative prompted the panel to act, official says.

Impelled by a rash of rumors and widespread fear about the potential effects of Proposition 187, the Orange County Human Relations Commission has announced plans to convene a hearing on the issue next week.

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The meeting, to be held Dec. 8, will feature brief presentations by officials representing law enforcement, social services, public health and education agencies, according to commission Chairman Kenneth Inouye. Members of the public are also invited to speak.

Inouye said the commission acted because of the prevalence of misinformation in the community about Proposition 187, the voter-approved initiative that would deny most public benefits to illegal immigrants. The proposition was immediately challenged in the courts, and it remains unclear which, if any, of its provisions may eventually take effect.

The hearing is an attempt to bring people from both sides of the issue together to help defuse some of the emotions still present after the election, said Inouye, who has chaired the commission since September.

“We want people to recognize that there are good people on both sides. . . ,” he said. “Everybody that voted for (Proposition 187) was not a racist and not everybody against it was against the laws of our country.”

Inouye said the decision to hold the hearing was not directly related to the recent death of Julio Cano, the 12-year-old Anaheim boy whose case reignited the debate over the controversial initiative. The boy’s parents, who are illegal immigrants, say they delayed seeking medical treatment for him because they feared that the passage of Proposition 187 meant that hospital officials might report them to immigration officials.

Early autopsy results indicate that the boy died of acute leukemia. It is unclear whether medical intervention might have saved his life.

Plans for the hearing, Inouye said, were “prompted more by the need just to bring people together and bring these things out in the open.” He said he hopes the meeting will also keep such incidents from recurring.

Inouye cited several examples of Orange County residents whose concerns needed to be addressed in the wake of the proposition’s passage, including a 7-year-old Fullerton boy who told his mother he was reluctant to go to school after the election because he was afraid some of his classmates would be taken away, apparently by immigration authorities.

Another involved a businessman, a 30-year legal resident who says his support for the initiative has been misunderstood by acquaintances and friends.

“Not everybody that voted for this had any discrimination in mind,” said the businessman, who spoke on condition that he not be identified. “This was strictly a law-and-order issue for me and people have to be able to accept that.”

The meeting will be at 7 p.m. in the commission’s office at 1300 S. Grand Ave., Building B, in Santa Ana.