Human Relations Board Escapes Privatization in 3-2 Vote

The county’s Human Relations Commission, whose duties include tracking hate crimes and promoting tolerance in schools, survived an attempt Monday by Supervisor Jim Silva to privatize the agency, which could have cut off its county funding.

Silva said his move to sever the agency from county government might help spark new revenue sources, such as cities, rather than have the commission rely on the county as the prime source of its $244,783 in public funding.

“I believe it’s an outstanding program,” Silva said during Monday’s hearing on the county’s proposed 2000-01 budget. “But the cities need to be paying into it too, and the county should completely privatize the commission so it can be 100% on its own.”

The question fueled debate among the five supervisors, who eventually voted 3 to 2 against Silva’s motion, with Supervisor Cynthia Coad on his side.

Silva said he was pushing for privatization in view of the commission’s successful fund-raising efforts through its private nonprofit arm, the Human Relations Council, which managed to raise $2 million last year from corporations, foundations and other sources.

“I’m encouraged by the vote of the board majority today,” said Kenneth K. Inouye, the commission’s vice chairman. “It’s been my experience while working on the Human Relations Commission that a vast majority of people in the county want to learn to get along.”

Before the vote, Board of Supervisors Chairman Chuck Smith made it clear that he would oppose Silva’s proposal, calling the agency’s fund-raising “commendable” and saying Silva’s action would “punish” the commission’s efforts.

Silva said some cities should shoulder more of the commission’s funding. In particular, he mentioned Westminster, where the agency spent many hours trying to calm fears and improve understanding after last year’s demonstrations over a merchant’s display of the Vietnamese flag and a poster of Ho Chi Minh.

But Smith countered that many demonstrators were from outside the city.

“To try to get 33 cities in Orange County to pony up and help pay for the commission would be kind of like curbing cats,” said Smith, a former Westminster mayor. “It also would put a tremendous fund-raising burden on the commission.”

The commission’s operating costs are $390,477, and the county’s portion is about 63%. Cities are supposed to pay nominal dues to help defray costs, but of the county’s 33 cities, only 23 do so, said Rusty Kennedy, the commission’s executive director.

“The commission is a public agency,” Kennedy said, “and works in collaboration with the council and handles the county hate-crimes network, conducts seminars and dialogues on ethnic diversity, and also community mediation, such as the crisis last year in Little Saigon.”

The commission has five employees. By contrast, the council has a $1.5-million operating budget and employs 22 people who working in such diverse programs as school interethnic relations, leadership development and student internships.

Inouye, who spoke to the board, said thousands of high school students in the county have gone through the commission’s programs.

Supervisor Todd Spitzer, who lives in Brea, said that if the cities knew there was a need for funding support, “funding wouldn’t be a problem for the commission.”

Brea Mayor Bev Perry agreed with Spitzer.

“We are a partner,” Perry said, “and if the county came to us and said, ‘Could you help us more?’ I’m sure we would look at that and see what we could do.”

Perry, who formerly served on the Human Relations Council, said the city’s ethnic makeup has diversified to the point in which 48 languages are spoken in Brea schools.

“I believe the three supervisors did the right thing,” she said. “There are some things that government should do regardless of whether you’re a county or a city.”