Groups Will Benefit From Skinhead Report

* As your July 9 editorial says, the county Commission on Human Relations report “Skinheads in Antelope Valley” was hastily done. The commission was directed by the Board of Supervisors to study how to eliminate the skinhead situation and make recommendations within 60 days. Though the commission has but seven field staff to cover the entire county, four staff conducted more than 100 interviews.

The report is about skinhead activity. The Sheriff’s Department, Probation Department, municipal leaders and community members had a consensus that there were between 40 and 100 individuals whose behavior (rather than appearance or perception) might class them as skinheads. Our report makes a distinction between behavior and appearance. A more common concern was expressed regarding gang activity in the Antelope Valley.

There was also a consensus that the disconnection between local minority communities and local government, schools and law enforcement was a larger concern. The report departed from the specific assignment to report on skinhead activity because positive race relations in the Antelope Valley are significant by their absence. A 60-day report on a related but separate subject admittedly cannot do justice to this larger issue. A major newspaper should be able to distinguish this, shouldn’t it?

The level of departure from the Board of Supervisors’ original instruction was limited and clearly disappointed some community leaders, who had need for our report to document the level of exclusion they were experiencing.

Lancaster Mayor George Runner, as your editorial reports, may reject many of the commission’s recommendations. The Lancaster City Council, as you did not report, took action to form a steering committee of City Council members to design a human relations oversight function. The commission provided Supt. Robert Girolamo of the Antelope Valley Union High School District a model hate crime policy and program that he has indicated will be taken to the school board next week. Sheriff’s Capt. Mike Aranda of the Antelope Valley heads one of the few stations to centralize hate crime investigation procedures. The commission has discussed this and other refinements in hate crime investigation and prosecution with Sheriff Sherman Block and the district attorney’s office. As a consequence, there will be improvements to the system.

When your editorial points out that there is an absence of consensus of whether there is a problem, differently stated, what you describe is contention and difference. The meeting of community organizations, law enforcement and municipal officials arranged by Supervisor Michael Antonovich’s office and the commission during the study also reflected vastly differing perceptions of local problems. It is this gap that identifies and reflects a problem unaddressed.

RON WAKABAYASHI

Los Angeles

Wakabayashi is the executive director of the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations.