City Council is poised to create a nine-member volunteer panel that would focus on equal rights, equity, access, and participation within the city.

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Legislation (O-19-20) to establish a city Social Justice Commission was introduced during the July 20 combined meeting and is scheduled to come up for a public hearing and final adoption at City Council’s next combined meeting on Aug. 10.

The Social Justice Commission would be established “for the protection and promotion of social justice within the territorial limits of the city, with a focus on ensuring equal rights, equity, access, and participation for all members of the city’s population,” according to the ordinance. The commission could make “recommendations on changing policies, structures, and institutions so they work on behalf of the common good, deepening our awareness of social justice values.”

Mayor Raymond Giacobbe, Jr. said in an interview last week that it was around this time last year that he was looking to implement a commission after attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors. He felt it was important that he and the governing body had an “outside kind of perspective of social issues” from grassroots organizations and people within the community “to get a pulse on what exactly the needs are of marginalized people of our community.”

Discussion at the beginning of the year about forming a commission was put on the back burner because of the coronavirus pandemic, Giacobbe said. “Due to everything that transpired the last couple of months,” he said it was important to put it at the top of the list. While there were no specific local issues cited to immediately address, the mayor said given what’s happening around the nation, it’s “the right time to act and show the rest of the county, state and country that a diverse community can come together, agree and disagree, but come together on that.”

The commission would create policies and agenda items based on four “pillars” of rights, equality and equity, access, and participation, the mayor said. Just as the Environmental Commission can bring issues to City Council and the administration related to the environment, the Social Justice Commission is a similar structure to raise issues important to marginalized groups, Giacobbe said.

The commission would consist of nine members nominated by the mayor and confirmed by City Council, just as with other city boards and commissions. Commissioners would not be paid and the inaugural members would serve staggered terms beginning Sept. 1.

Three would serve 39-month terms through 2023, another three would serve 27-month terms through 2022, and an additional three would serve 15-month terms, expiring at the end of 2021. All subsequent appointments would begin Jan. 1. The commission would be led by two co-chairpersons, one male and one female, designated by the mayor.

The commission will be able to make recommendations to the administration and City Council, Giacobbe said, but would not have voting power over budgetary issues. The commission was not a requisite of the “8Can’tWait” campaign, which City Council also supported via a resolution (AR-156-20) at the July meeting.

That resolution, among other things, requests the city administrator and police chief to review the city’s policies to “ensure alignment with the practices recommended by the national ‘8 Can’t Wait’ initiative, including: banning chokeholds and strangleholds, requiring de-escalation, requiring warning before shooting, exhausting all alternatives before shooting, a duty to intervene, banning shooting at moving vehicles, requiring use of force continuum and requiring comprehensive reporting.”

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