City Council - Civil Rights, Racial Equity, and Immigrant Advancement Committee Hearing on Docket #1237

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My name is Mejia Culpepper, District 7 City Councilor and I am Chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Civil Rights, Racial Equity, and Immigrant Advancement. Today is July 21-2026, the exact time is 2.05 p.m. This hearing is being recorded. It is also being live streamed at boston.gov Backslash City Council-TV and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, and Files Channel 964. Written comments may be submitted to the committee, email at ccc.civilrightsatboston.gov and will be made part of the record and available to all counselors. Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing.

Individuals will be called on in the order in which they signed up and we'll have two minutes to testify. If you are interested in testifying in person, Please add your name to the sign-in sheet near the entrance of the chamber. If you're looking to testify virtually, please email our central staff liaison Megan Kavanaugh at megan.kavanaughatboston.gov for the link and your name will be added to the list today's hearing is on docket number one two three seven Order for a hearing regarding the future of the Boston Human Rights Commission. This matter was co-sponsored by Ed Flynn, and Councilor Brian Wuwell. And was sponsored by Menyar Culpepper. It was referred to the committee on June 24th, 2026. Today I am pleased

Be joined by my colleagues in order of arrival, Councilor Murphy, Councillor Flynn, Councillor Fitzgerald and Councillor Breadon. Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. I want to thank my colleagues for being here today and I wanna thank our panelists and members of the public for joining us for this important discussion on the future of the Boston Human Rights Commission. I want to begin by saying that I am concerned that the Boston human rights commission has now been inactive for more than two years

At a time when residents continue to face discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations and other areas of everyday life I believe Boston should have an active and effective Human Rights Commission, one that residents know exists and can trust to protect their rights. Today's hearing is not simply about looking backward at why the commission became inactive I want to use this opportunity to begin a broader conversation about how we rebuild and reform the Boston Human Rights Commission for the future. During the fiscal 27 budget process, The City Council secured $200,000 to continue the Human Rights Commission. Now that funding has been preserved we need to determine what kind of commission we want to rebuild, what authority it should have

and how it should operate, and how we ensure that it becomes a meaningful and lasting institution within our city. We also have an opportunity to learn from what is working elsewhere where the Boston's existing ordinance provides a commission with the tools it needs. That includes examining its complaint process, investigative and enforcement authority staffing reporting requirements Accessibility to Residence, and relationship with organizations such as the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination and other state and federal civil rights agencies. I also want to use today's hearing received feedback on the draft ordinance to reform the Boston Human Rights Commission that has been distributed to the counselors and our panelists, and is available in today's hearing folder. This is just a draft

and today's discussion is intended to help inform and improve it. Among other reforms, the proposal considers establishing clear timelines for complaints, a structured investigation and appeals process Mandatory Reconciliation, Discovery and Public Hearings, Stronger Data Reporting, and a more defined adjudicatory role for the Commission. Ultimately I want us to leave today's hearing With a better understanding of what an effective Human Rights Commission should look like in Boston and what changes are necessary to get us there, we have an opportunity not simply to reactivate the commission Thank you, Mr. President.

Turn to my counselors. Counselor, you will have five minutes for opening remarks. We'll start with co-sponsored counselor Finn.

Thank you, Councilor Culpepper, Mr. Chair for adding me as an original co-sponsor and want to say thank you to council of Culpeper for his long time work as a civil rights attorney, civil rights leader not just in the Commonwealth but across the country as well. This is an important hearing today. We must always as a city strive to live in a city and country where civil rights and human rights are protected and respected. Since its start, The Commission provided an important voice for those that were discriminated against or a victim of a hate crime. And we've seen a lot of hate crimes in this city especially in the early to mid 80s.

I remember those days clearly, this commission, the Human Rights Commission was established under Mayor Flynn and I believe he selected the first director was a woman who lived in South Boston recently and moved, but Anne Saunders. Many people might know Anne Saunder at that time There were a lot of hate crimes against gay and lesbians in the city. And I didn't use the term LGBTQ because that wasn't the term back then, but there was a lot We also witnessed and experienced a lot of assaults against African Americans in the city. Human Rights Commission was an opportunity for people to come forward and document these cases.

And they would be investigated at one time, the Human Rights commission was well respected. and they did a lot of outstanding work. As a city councilor for eight years, I tried to do as much work with the Human Rights Commission as I possibly could. I probably have sent more documents asking for various investigations on hate crimes against persons with disabilities, against LGBTQ community, against communities of color. Probably more so than anyone in the city That's the respect I had for the commission and for the members, and for officers. Those on the board. One of them who I've had great respect for is a woman Margaret McKenna as well

But I know it's struggled over the years, and when something is struggling doesn't mean that you need to end it. What we need is the strong, positive leadership to make it an effective board and an effective organization. I'm not here as Councilor Culpepper mentioned to point fingers but I'm here to work with all of my city council colleagues in the mayor, to see how we move forward to make this a strong commission where people that are discriminated against or not treated with respect or a victim of hate crime can come to the commission, document the case. Hopefully it'd be investigated But it sends a message to people across the city, Boston is serious about civil rights issues. Boston is series about human rights issues I remember when the Boston Police had

Community Disorders Unit. Many people remember that they investigated civil rights issues. I strongly believe in that role for the Boston Police as well. I'm going to stop there, but I just want to say I'm willing to work With my city council colleagues and the mayor to make this a more effective body. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I also want to acknowledge the important role in leadership of Councilor Brian Worrell as well.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. Councillor Murphy?

Thank you.

You have five minutes.

Thank you Chair. And thank you for your opening statement. One thing you said, which I know you and Council Flynn Worrell, and others have been saying especially through the budget season when you were advocating to grow this commission not disband it is Do the residents of the city of Boston, I'm paraphrasing here, but do they even know that this commission is here to support them? And I believe it should be. And in the first whereas clause today we'll be speaking about How the Human Rights Commission was established to ensure full and equal access to public services, accommodations, investigate and address discrimination and to promote human rights and to educate the public. and I believe city workers in City Council.

And I know there may be other departments or other areas that touch upon or address some of these issues, but I also agree it's been said and will probably be said again Because the city hasn't been really doing much under this commission in the past few years doesn't mean that that is a reason to just get rid of it. I think it's time to take a good hard look and see if we should be making it stronger. And what was positive about having it be a standalone commission? I know we'll hear a lot, and I know already from you know the work I've been doing these past five years but just also researching for this that there definitely are departments and there's expectations across every city department for this type of Thank you, Councilor Murphy.

I'd like to add that we've been joined by our second co-sponsor, Councilor Brian Worrell. And Councilor Worrell are you ready? You come back to me. Okay. Fitzgerald. You've got five minutes.

Thank you, Chair. I will not need all five but I just want to thank yourself, Councillor Flynn and Councillor Orrell for bringing this forward. I do appreciate Councillor Flynn's brief history that he gave I want to thank the administration and advocates for being panelists today. Interested to learn about Where this came from, what it's done in the past, why it may have fallen off recently and where we feel either parts are being picked up elsewhere or how we can strengthen this again. So I look forward to the opportunity to be educated on all those things. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I'm not going to use the five minutes. I just want to thank you and the lead sponsors for bringing this forward. A storied history that goes back to the 1980s, as Councillor Flynn has already mentioned. and before I think it's a timely moment to just examine the history of where the Human Rights Commission has been, the work that they've done and how we may need to modify or change things going forward but that we shouldn't be Disbanding it and making it obsolete without due diligence and looking at its purposes and how we might address the prevailing challenges that we face right now in terms of discrimination and human rights abuses in our city. And then also learning from other municipalities that still have

Functioning Human Rights Commissions, what work are they doing and how we might modify or change what we're doing going forward. So I look forward to the conversation and look forward learning more. Thank you.

Worrell. Yes, thank you.

Thank you chair and uh thank you to my sponsors and thank you the administration for being here um something that We fought for in the budget to make sure that this department, this commission sticks around for this FY27 budget. But we'd love to just hear—we're looking forward to hearing what the administration I know there was a consultant that provided back a report, so would love to get the details of that. But I do think it's important We work all together on strengthening this commission in this department. And if we are looking to shift course or change strategy, I think that's a conversation that should be had with this body prior to making those changes inside of the budget so looking forward to this conversation and thank you again to my sponsors and thank

Thank you, Councilor Wuwell. I'd like to add the letter of absence from Councilor Mejia Dear Chair Culpepper, I am writing to inform you of my absence during today's 2 p.m. hearing on the future of Boston Human Rights Commission. My staff will be listening in. and I will review upon my return. Thank you for your attention to this matter. I'd like to now introduce today's first panelist, Maya Guerra Deputy. Chief of Operations for Equity and Inclusion Cabinet for the City. Ms. Getty, you have six minutes.

Thank you Chair and Councillors for having us. So I put together some slides just to walk folks through where things are currently with the Human Rights Commission. I'm going to try not to mess this up, and I already have... You guys have seen these from our budget slides, but just wanted to sort of reiterate the basis of the equity inclusion cabinet as a whole. And we work really hard to make sure our departments are also feeding into this mission and a real framework thinking about the services we offer and many more. We also have the work that we do externally to build coalitions across our different teams which include language and cultural access, LGBTQ access team. Could I have next slide, please? I'm just going in order of their offices. The immigrant advancement team and then our women's advancement team, black male advancement and then upstairs we have the Fair Housing Commission and the Disability Commission.

Those teams all work really hard to make sure that we are thinking about things from an intersectional lens, and that we're not duplicating We strive really hard to make sure that we are meeting our constituent needs. And ideally, you're meeting them the first time when they come through the door. I have the slides up on my laptop so I will just look at them here for a moment. Oh, thank you. So wanted to, I think we're past a slide. Sorry. We could go back to slide number four that would be great. I wanted to talk a little bit about, and the slides will show up eventually, about the constituent requests we got in calendar year 2025 for the Human Rights Commission. That is not what you're seeing up on those slides right now but I'll walk you through them. The numbers are pretty simple. So these requests come in via a couple of different ways. They come in the phone, via email, via 311 routing and then the occasional in-person walk-in. We try to make sure that all of our teams take

They request the same way. And we got 40 constituent requests for calendar year 2025 for the Human Rights Commission. Those break down to the following. So, we had eight requests for internship and job inquiries 11 requests that were outside of our jurisdiction. That included things that were geographically outside of the jurisdiction, so a different city, town state or outside of subject matter which we'll go over in a little bit. 20, and then 20. So the other half of them were referred to government agencies or nonprofits that provide the relevant services that the concession was looking for. Those could have included things like somebody who is looking for immigration legal access or Food Access Support. So it's a wide variation, but as you can see not very many requests. If I could have next slide please? This is smaller font, and I apologize for those of you reading.

But this slide walks us through the real difference in requests you see for our other teams. So we'll start with the Disability Commission which has been created. They started a couple of years after the Human Rights Commission and are built off of the American with Disabilities Act, and they handle both ADA grievances as well as various constituent requests for resources and referrals They also run our accessible parking placard program. So that's parking spots on the street that allow somebody with a disability to be designated a spot on their street You'll see the numbers for both fair housing as well as language and cultural access, which 5,000 interpretations is quite a few. But those come from mostly constituent requests but some of them will also have been Black Mill Advancement has 147 referrals to internal city departments. Immigrant advancement

with 3,500 interactions when it comes to resource navigation. A lot of the time that is referrals to outside folks who can help them best but they are great at keeping track of those numbers and then finally 500 referrals from IA2S Plus Advancement Team. Again, similar to some of the other advancement teams doing that referral internal to the city. Next slide please. And then outside of our, sorry these slides just walk through some of the more proactive work that we do as a team to make sure that The things that the Human Rights Commission is built to address don't happen in the first place. So, that ranges from fair housing training to fair housing testing that should be coming out soon, work that we do with My Brother's Keeper, work of the City, Office of Returning Citizens. As you can see there is 220 applications processed for the on-street accessible parking program we run in conjunction with

The teams work really hard to make sure that these things are handled. Some of them are required by how the teams are set up, and others are things that the teams have added over the years and worked together on, and quite frankly often work with other departments across the city on to make Those are my slides. I'm sorry that things got a little jumbled, guys. That's my time.

Thank you. Five minutes for questions and we'll start with my co-sponsor, Councilor Flynn.

Thank you. I was just curious, listening to your opening statement. What is the message about the Human Rights Commission?

Sorry, I want to make sure my mic's on. We wanted to be clear that the work is still happening. I'm sorry if that was not clear in the slides.

No, it wasn't clear to me. So... The hearing is on the future of the Human Rights Commission. What is your opinion about the Human Rights Commission?

So I know the slides aren't up anymore, but that first slide that walked us through the number of constituent requests for the Human rights commission. We were working to then illustrate on that following and so on. We have a significantly higher volume of requests that we get, some of which do overlap with the commission's oversight. Commission of People with Disabilities, right? The public accommodation section of the ordinance. Those contemplate the same work.

Oh so are you saying that Because other departments are doing this work that there really is not a need for the Human Rights Commission. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but is that your message basically?

No, I think we are not trying to make the argument about need versus not need, but ensure folks that the work is still happening.

Okay. So I just want to, I won't use the word pushback but a lot of residents didn't know about the Human Rights Commission for many years. They didn't how to submit A complaint to the Human Rights Commission. Again, I probably have submitted more complaints than anybody in the city of Boston on to the human rights commission But a lot of residents didn't know how to do that. I think that was a big part of it. A major part of the Human Rights Commission is educating people across the city, educating the public about the human rights commission that it's an important body, and it's there for a purpose. But I think there was a message there that it was not working or it was shut down, There was office turmoil, wasn't there? Is that fair to say?

I'm not sure, Councillor. I started my time in the Cabinet two summers ago so I wasn't present for most of By the time I arrived, the commission did not have members.

Okay, well that's what I'm trying to get at because I think the members of the commission wanted to do the work and I do think they were discouraged from doing the work. And, I don't know why that was the case but if the complaints were down I believe they were down because residents did not necessarily really know how to file a complaint or they may have They didn't know the process. They didnít know that Human Rights Commission was in existence or there was always a message that maybe thatís not the right avenue to file an issue If you have a civil rights or human rights related issue, maybe it's not the place to file that complaint with the Human Rights Commission. I disagree with all of them. But that was the perception out there.

So my point is, when I hear that they weren't many complaints from the public I take that with a grain of salt because the public didn't know how to formally make a complaint. Here's my question, what type of outreach did the mayor's office do to the public telling them about how to file a complaint?

Yep, so we've made sure to update the website for the Human Rights Commission.

No, but going back over the years?

I can really only speak to what we've done in the past two years since I've been on our team. I'm not able to answer questions beyond that.

But was it non-existent over the last year?

The intake for complaints?

Yeah.

No, I showed those numbers at the beginning of my slides. Those were calendar year 25 numbers.

Okay. And how many people were working there?

None.

How many people were working?

None, but all of the complaints were handled by Equity and Inclusion Cabinet staff.

And how many commissioners were there?

None in 2025.

Okay that's what I'm getting at so there was no one working there There was, so that's basically a Human Rights Commission in name only. If the commission members are not working there and is not an executive director or director and some other organization is doing the work, to me that means it's not existing. It's not doing its job. I'm not blaming you, I'm no blaming anybody. But those are clearly the facts. And again, I don't want to point fingers but what I wanna do is acknowledge that there wasn't not only public education and awareness Even staff there to answer a question at the Human Rights Commission if you had a particular issue. Because I communicated often with the Human rights commission, maybe 30 times, maybe 40

and a lot of times people weren't there. As you said, there was no one working there so I understand that my calls or emails weren't being returned but if If no one is working at a commission and there's no commissioned members, it's basically non-existent. Mr. Chair I have no further comment.

Thank you Mr. chair.

Councillor Murphy

Thank you. How many departments or commissions fall under the Equity and Inclusion Cabinet?

So, departments and commissions are a little bit different. Do you want both?

Yes.

So we've got language and cultural access. And they also house the literacy task force, so that's two. Move over to the LGBTQ advancement team. They have a new commission coming online later this year, so we'll call that four. Then you have Immigrant Advancement, then you have the Women's Advancement Team, Black Male Advancement team which also houses the Black Men and Boys Commission. Then you Have the Fair Housing Office which also has is the Fair The Commission for People with Disabilities, which also houses that commission. In the E&I office we also run the reparations task force and I deeply hope to my teams that I have not forgotten anyone. How many employees altogether? Over 80 staff, but that does not include commissioners. I'd have to get back to you on that number.

And zero staff were assigned to the Human Rights Commission?

Yes, formally. We make sure that the tasks are handled and that everyone gets responses to any outreach but no one is assigned to the office.

Is there a desk? Is there like a door that says the Human Rights Commission upstairs somewhere?

No.

This is, I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone. Why? I mean because if we just walk away from something and just leave it empty nobody's going to pay attention to it because obviously The other thing, but the other departments and commissions you mentioned have very specific roles and have jobs. So none of them we went through the budget process. None of those departments or commissions have the time or staff to free up? Who then is responsible to answer a call when nobody is assigned to the Human Rights Commission?

So Equity and Inclusion office staff, some of the staff that help Sit in the cabinet itself. Make sure we answer those phone calls.

How many are just staff waiting for a call to this commission?

There aren't necessarily call takers, but my phone rings and I answer it. I'd have to double check with you on the exact phone number we're routing things too, but... Yeah.

So if you could then walk me through the process? It's confusing for the public to know what to do, who to call, If you could then talk on your role as the Deputy Chief of Operations. What would it look like? Like, what email do you send it to? Which data entry point? Where does this information go? In my opinion, it kind of could go nowhere and nobody would ever know.

Yep, so those are good questions. We did ensure that the emails and communication are still going to our core equity email, so equity at boston.gov. When you go to the Boston.gov website and go to Human Rights Commission page You can still click submit a claim or submit a complaint. And it just routes to that email, which several staff have access to and that's how we ensure that those complaints are still being handled.

How many emails have gone to that?

I went through this in the slides, but there were 40 complaints that were human rights specific sent to that email address in calendar year 2025.

Do you differentiate questions from

We do. So yes, in the notes that we got somebody said I'd like to speak to the Human Rights Commission or the Human rights commission was mentioned in those 40 notes But those include walk-ins or 311 transfers, things like that.

When was the last time a city employee was assigned to the Human Rights Commission?

As a staff member or to make sure these constituent complaints were happening?

As a specific staff member. At one point, there were actually employees that knew their job was to work in the Human Rights Commission, correct? Yes. When was the last time any city employee was paid attached to this commission?

I would have to double check, but it was before my time.

And when did you stop?

In the cabinet two years ago.

So maybe two years ago, but could it be as far back as 10 years? Like wouldn't you know?

I don't. I'm not sure it's quite that long just based from what I've heard from folks in the room.

Is it fair to say that It's since this administration started five years ago, or do you think it went back further?

I'm not sure, Councillor, honestly.

And when you have conversations with the other directors and chiefs of these and other departments that fall under equity and inclusion. How do you uplift the work of like who speaks for them?

Like who speaks for the complainant, like the constituents?

No not the complaint no. Who just speaks for their commission that is important Is anyone questioning? Because if we wiped out, like when we went through the budget process and realized many of the departments that fall under equity inclusion are 100% grants. and 100% of grants to many departments falling in this commission, I mean under this cabinet had zero grants. And there was conversation about well if the only purpose Department is to issue grants, and now we have no grants. and there were staff members attached. We have direct understanding of what is your budget, how much of it is grants? How much of this city operating budget? How many staff members are assigned? At what point did people say We don't care about the Human Rights Commission anymore, and we don't want to stop it.

because if we were sitting here and we found out that nobody is working anymore in the blackmail advancement office or nobody is assigned We're responsible for anything that happens in the Women Advancement Office. To me, that would be alarming. So why wasn't somebody in the administration advocating to make sure that this commission was properly staffed.

I'm going to try and answer that question. I'm gonna answer this last part, but please correct me. I think a lot of where when I came into my role, I wanted to make sure that the work we were getting was being done. And we have found that The referral system we have in place works really well, and that often people are reaching out about things that are not relevant to the Human Rights Commission or that they are reaching about things specifically under the purview of a different team or department even outside our cabinet.

So it was intentional because you were seeing that the calls or complaints, as you were saying, that come in. The concerns could be handled in other places so we as a city or you Deputy or the Mayor, like somebody intentionally decided that it was overlap and not needed.

I'm not sure. I'm really not sure I was part of those exact philosophical questions.

But you did just explain saying that When you looked at the calls that came in and when you looked what the commission was covering, that you saw that other people were already doing it or the complaints. Probably I don't think I would call it a complaint but that they weren't even properly, the public may have called in and you wouldn't have considered it a human rights issue so it would've gone to a different department anyway.

I'm not sure I understand what the question is, Councilor. I'm sorry.

That's fine. But when you wipe out a whole department and expect other departments to step up... When you think of a school, you just wipe out the reading teacher and expect the math specialist to flag when there may be concerns. It doesn't seem like it's the best way to handle such an important Commission, and the City of Boston. So hopefully when my other colleagues ask questions and we hear from the other advocates that we can come to some understanding if this was the best choice that we have made as a city.

Thank you, Councillor Murphy. Councillor Breadon, you have five minutes.

Adjudicatory primary function was the commission shall serve as an administrative and adjudicator body for the investigation, hearing resolution of complaints of discrimination. So who deals with complaints of and the Equity Cabinet know?

So they still are submitted via the Human Rights Commission in the ways that I outlined. And then we refer them to the team that handles that kind of a case, right? So the public accommodation section of the ordinance is covered by the ordinance that we passed around the Disability Commission.

So what about wage theft and employment discrimination and housing discrimination? So something like housing discrimination would go to fair housing, right? But we've got a problem with fair housing because they haven't had an executive director since Bob Terrell passed away. You know, so I imagine that fair housing is not up to speed either in terms of investigating discrimination.

I don't think their intake numbers have gone down significantly and that's what you're seeing is like the intake number is sort of somebody comes for help

So they come for help, but adjudication resolution and mitigation of complaints. Do we have a report like an annual report of the type of complaints How they were resolved, what mitigation and then also what work are we doing in terms of educating people about human rights generally? Wage Theft, Housing Discrimination, Employment, Altered Gender, Sexual Orientation, Country of Origin. Are people, like it seems to me that people, to Councillor Flynn's point earlier, that people don't know that the Human Rights Commission actually exists and that there's a form of recourse if they feel that they've been discriminated against in the city of Boston. Is that... Is that a fair comment? People don't know you're there. In fact, you're not there at the moment because

It's like I'm looking at other jurisdictions and they seem to have a much more proactive role in a more proactive approach to adjudicating human rights.

The way I think about it at least is, I try and break it down by the different protected classes that you're talking about. If we take housing discrimination Someone comes in to the fair housing team, which again is seeing the same number of intakes that they have been seeing previously. And they would work with the constituent to figure out if they have a fair housing case or if maybe they have a housing stability issue, right? If they are facing eviction and we can't pinpoint a protected class issue, we refer them to the next team. Something like public accommodation, right, this sidewalk was broken in front of City Hall I couldn't vote at my polling location because the sidewalk was broken. Those things go through with the grievance process with a disability commission and they do have the same sort of adjudication methods, at least for fair housing. And I am not the best person to speak on the exact process for V-88 grievances

Commissioner McCosh works really closely with the constituent to find a resolution that both, you know, both the impacted party so the constituant and then the team that is accused of discrimination find is reasonable and meets the constituate need.

So having a human rights commission was duplicative, is that right?

I think for some of these cases yes. For some of the types of protected classes as you go through them The Human Rights Commission was created before the ADA. And so I don't think it's the Human Rights Commissions fault for that, but the ADA was passed several years after.

But surely in the context of an equity cabinet Something like the Human Rights Commission would act as an umbrella in which all of those questions of human rights violations could be dealt with regardless of whether it's a sexual orientation, housing, fair housing, employment. that you would have an attorney on staff and people who are well versed in how to deal with the different complaints?

I think it's a little complicated. HUD funding for fair housing does stipulate who works on that That sort of work and that intake. And Title II under the ADA also does have some requirements for how those kinds of grievances go through. I think it's a, you know, we work to do pretty complex work within the ordinance and make sure things are handled I'm not sure it's quite as simple as having an umbrella organization.

Well, I see no other councils are here. So I did have a few questions that I wanted to talk to you about with regard to the... You mentioned adjudication Several times you talked about the adjudicate cases. What's your definition of adjudication?

Perhaps I misused the word, Councillor, but what I was trying to explain was the fair housing process that a case can go through in the commission. So it can mean a settlement. It can mean lot of different things for the claimant, the aggrieved, the constituent usually and then the respondent, so the person accused of discrimination in the housing case. But those processes vary really in how exactly they're worked through but an investigator goes through The information at hand, they do some real investigating. They do site visits and things like that. And they try to come up with what they think happened and make a recommendation to the commission

Would you agree that adjudication means a tribunal, legal tribunal or a judge or someone sitting to hear the matter in dispute? And so what of any of these equity departments would you consider is an adjudicatory body pursuant to some kind Tribunal or judge to hear a case?

I think the Fair Housing Commission has some of those powers.

Would they be able to hear race discrimination case?

If it was related to housing, yes.

Not related to housing. If it was related to employment?

No, that would not be under their jurisdiction.

So a person with a race discrimination case in employment, where would they go under the Equity Cabinet to have their case heard?

We would refer them to our partners at MCAD.

And with regard to the referrals for MCAD, how do you track them? How does that happen once you refer a case to MCAD?

We refer cases over to them and actually things are pretty quiet after that. So you don't track them? We keep track of the cases that we have sent over, but it is not MCAD's responsibility to let us know the resolution of those cases. And once they're out of our hands... We want to be careful about knowing things we should not know about a case that is in progress.

And so you don't think you should know about the case that was filed with one of the agencies here, that was then referred to MCAD?

I think if MCAD found that to be appropriate, I don't wish to step on their toes through their own investigation process.

So we don't track the cases that we refer to MCAD or any other outside agency?

To external agencies, no. We don't track them. Not that I'm aware of.

And on the webpage for the Boston Human Rights Commission there was discriminant... On the dashboard it says there were 76 complaints that were received between 2021 and 2023. And it says 61 of those cases have been referred out. Can you tell me, of those 61 cases that were referred out, do you know where they were referred to?

I don't, Councilor. I'd have to go check that dashboard.

Can you come back with that information? Sure.

Remind me what the numbers are for the dashboard and the year range.

21 to 23 there were 76 cases. 80 percent will refer out. Okay. 18%, and this is where I'm really trying to figure this out, you might be able to help me with this. 18% of the cases or maybe 14%. It says that They're still in progress. So if there's no staff, no one doing any work on cases, how are they in progress?

I'm not sure Councilor if this isn't a dashboard that I'm familiar with or that we are currently using. It's on the website, it's still there. Yeah, it sounds like we should take a look at that. I presented the numbers from calendar year 2025 because that's what we have, we are actively tracking and using. The dashboard might be out of date, and we should take that down if that's the case.

But my question is more basic. It says that they're still in progress. If there's no one there, how are they still in

I'm not sure, Councilor. I really am not familiar with this dashboard that you're asking about.

I know but here's my question. Forget about the dashboard for a minute. It says they are still in progress if there is no one there How are they still in progress?

I think it is possible that the dashboard hasn't been updated. It's possible they are sitting in limbo, but I really don't know.

I cannot speak to it So someone who filed a complaint is still waiting for a decision and we have no idea what happened to their case.

We might, I'm really not sure.

And so if they called the Boston Human Rights Commission

They wouldn't get a... No, currently when folks call we take that in. We have a different tracking system.

And if they called about one of the cases that are in progress what would we tell them?

We'd have to get back to them. I'm sure we have the information, we keep all of our records in good order so we'd have look into it but I'm not sure that's ever happened. to my knowledge in the past two years call about a previous case.

And so if it was a case that was referred to MCAD, you wouldn't know what to tell them because they're not tracking the cases

Well, they should be calling MCAD for updates is probably what we would tell the constituent initially. And then if there were some issues identified, we'd be happy to call MCAD and support them through that process. But you know, if MCAD is running an investigation I don't want to trample on that

So the dashboard hasn't been updated since?

Sounds like 2023. 2023.

You think it needs to be updated?

Potentially, yeah. It's before my time in the cabinet but I'm happy to take a look at it.

And so in the presentation talks about 11 requests as being outside of the commission jurisdiction What's outside of the commission's jurisdiction?

So that is a combination of geography, so outside of this city of Boston limits. We do get a decent number of cases Like, you know, nearby towns and cities. We do sometimes get things that are out of state just because people know Boston. And then we also get things outside the scope or commission's ordinance.

was considered outside of the commission's jurisdiction but still a Boston resident. What would constitute being outside of that jurisdiction if it was filed with the Human Rights Commission and they were Boston residents?

Yeah, that's a good question. It is about where the issue of discrimination took place. We see less of this now because a lot of things are happening online But this would be if somebody was in Cambridge and experienced discrimination.

The question was for a Boston resident that filed a case with the Human Rights Commission, what would be considered... out of the jurisdiction for a Boston resident?

The discriminatory action has to happen inside Boston. Does that make sense?

For Boston residents?

Yes. It is about placement was our understanding of the ordinance. So I think that is part of where you get some of the out-of-state stuff, it might be a college student. We do our best to point them in the direction of the resources Because things happen in other cities and towns, MCAT is a good catch-all for those.

What other out of jurisdiction basis are there?

That would be like if somebody reached out about a conflict that is not, or a protected class that's not listed in the ordinance.

And what are the protected classes that are listed in an ordinance? Do you want me to read them?

It's quite a list. Go on. Yep, so race, color, sex, gender identity or expression, age, religious creed, disability, national origin or ancestry, Sexual Orientation, Marital Status, Parental Status, Prior Psychiatric Treatment, Military Status, Ex-Offender Status or Source of Income.

So for the categories you just listed under the Equity Cabinet There wouldn't be any place where they could go under the equity cabinet to have their case heard or decided.

For?

The categories you just listed.

So I do think it is important to remember, like The disability listed there, as well as national origin or ancestry. That often shows up in language so that is handled under the LCA team.

But they don't have any adjudicatory functions do they? They don't hear the cases?

They do not formally, but we do have some requirements under Title VI to ensure that things... that people are not being discriminated based on national origin or ancestry. Yeah, so Title VI protects a couple of these things but especially is often found to be a great protector for national origin and ancestry In LCA's case, what they do is if somebody comes and tries to come to a council hearing The interpretation system doesn't work, right? It's a genuine mistake but it happens. That complaint goes to LCA. They would then make sure to check in with council central staff to make sure that next time the systems were set up correctly or folks needed more training

So for sex discrimination, there's no department or under the equity cabinet that they could go to have their case heard. Is that right?

Yes, if it wasn't related to housing. That would be correct.

Housing is the only thing that folks can come to the City of Boston other than the Human Rights Commission for discrimination.

and the Disability Commission.

And the disability, but all the other categories they would have to be referred to another agency?

Again it depends on national origin ancestry if that's related to language then we also take that away there's no other place where they can go

and the City of Boston to file a discrimination complaint.

Correct.

Okay, and we don't track them when we refer them to MCA day or any other agency. And so how do we know? Do we just close the case, or does it just fall on deaf ears in terms of The data that compiles the cases that are filed

So we don't track them when they leave the city of Boston, but if they stay with the City of Boston we do track them. So that's cases that get referred to Fair Housing or sometimes something is Actually about a housing stability issue, right? Sometimes we do obviously track things like the ADA grievances. If somebody's having a hard time just simply reaching a department, we make sure to offer support there via technical assistance but those are the sort of broad ones that I've spoken through already today.

So in your presentation, it shows at the constituent activity across equity inclusion cabinet 25, 2,900 disability Commission Referrals, 150 Fair Housing Discrimination Intakes. With no fair housing director how are there 150 discrimination cases that referred to Fair Housing decided or handled?

By the investigations team. The Fair Housing director very infrequently would have Wade in on the final version of a case. That usually is left up to the team of the investigators and the director of investigations because they have to present to all the commissioners, including the fair housing director for a final vote.

And so if there's no directive, there's not presentation.

No, the presentations have still happened. The commission continues to meet.

And so there is no adjudicatory function there?

There are hearings for the Fair Housing Commission.

Without a fair housing director?

Yes, the commissioners. The appointed commissioners handle the hearings.

How many have been heard the last year?

I would have to double check a lot of the time, and this is a good thing, they end up in settlement. At least that is the good thing based on what our constituents asked for and they are who guide the case. But I'd have to do double-check how many hearings exactly we've ended up having

Do you know whether or not there were any?

Yes, there were a couple. There were definitely some. And those get scheduled. They're not publicly noticed in the same way because they are private. But those get

There were 147 black male advancement referred to city departments. Do you know how many of those were discrimination cases?

None that I'm aware of. Those are usually referrals, people sort of looking for the right door. And we try and be the place to point them in the right direction.

3,500 immigrant advancement resource navigation interactions. and more than 500 LGBTQ1A2S referrals. None of these cases were able to be handled by any city department because There's no discriminatory agency currently operating.

Well, I'm glad you actually asked about the LGBTQ2IA+. to IS Plus team. So they do some really great work with the Boston Police Department, and have created a toolkit for that if they call it the Anti-Hate Crime Toolkit They do really incredible work that is well recognized in the community as well as by BPD.

What about if they brought discrimination complaints? I know the police department wouldn't handle those, would they?

I don't want to speak on what the police department would or would not want to do, but I think it would have to rise to a criminal level, if that makes sense.

Right. I'm talking about discrimination cases, not criminals. The Boston Police Department wouldn't be handling any discrimination complaint, would they?

If it rose to a criminal level potentially but I think... We're not talking about criminals.

If it's a discrimination case The Boston Police Department wouldn't handle a discrimination complaint that didn't rise to a criminal case.

I think the MOLA, the LGBTQ advancement team works closely with BPD to make sure that that's not what the complainants or the constituent. That's not the avenue they want to take right? So there have been a couple of sort of newsworthy pick and so on. And I think it's really important to pick a thing that happened the past year, that rose to your news feed around LGBTQ couples in public being discriminated against maybe for bathroom usage the individuals who aren't sure, right? Is this a crime they want to go to BPD with Is it something that they want to handle via MCAD? And so, they sort of act as a helpful navigator through that process in a place where people don't always feel comfortable with the institutions we're familiar

The question was a little more basic than that and every LGBTQ complaining that has a discrimination case would have no place to take their case in the city of Boston. Where would they take the discrimination case? The Human Rights Commission is inoperative, and that's the only place I would handle the discrimination complaint. And if it's an operative There would be no place for them to take their case. Isn't that correct?

Yes, I'm trying to explain what we do in the current... No, no, no.

I'm just trying to get to where would Folks that have been discriminated against take their case within the City of Boston, knowing that the Boston Human Rights Commission is currently not in operation.

I'm trying to describe that they often do bring those things to our teams. That might not be the right place, they aren't adjudicative bodies but we do get those phone calls and work really hard to help them navigate and decide where they want to take the case, right? Sometimes people do wanna go to MCAD. Sometimes people wanna hire lawyers Our teams really just work to make sure that they offer people that roadmap. You are correct, it does not include the Human Rights Commission as an option.

But the city of Boston has no place where a complaining for discrimination case can take their case to be heard.

For? Any kind of discrimination. For disability discrimination. They will go to the Commission for People with Disabilities. That is an avenue for that protected class.

There's no hearing there? They couldn't get a hearing?

The ADA describes a different process.

But there's no hearings there?

No, there are no hearings as described under the ADA.

Let me just ask a couple more questions to see if my colleague is going to be back anytime soon. The Disability Commission received six ADA Title II grievances in 2025, two of which were outside of this jurisdiction. What was the basis for concluding that it was outside of their jurisdiction?

I'd have to look up those exact two cases, but that would be something like the discrimination took place in Newton, not in Boston. Or it wasn't a disability... The discrimination issue wasn't about disability. It was about age or it was about

Can you check on the other four too? The other four grievances that were filed to see what happened with them, whether they were referred out, whether there was some kind of resolution to the complaint that was filed?

The four that are listed here would have been handled by Commissioner McCosh. So she does a process where she works with the constituent to understand what the core issue is, and then they work together to come towards a plan ensure that the public accommodation where they were discriminated gets retrained, has to write a letter of apology. It can really range on what the constituent is looking for but she and her team work through that process with the constituent.

What authority does the Disability Commission have to investigate and resolve grievances? The Americans With Disabilities Act.

My understanding, I'm not a lawyer, is that they are given their authority by the federal law passed in 1990 which creates Title II commissioners in municipalities across the entire nation. So this is her charge that she has given under that law.

Thank you, I've got a few more questions. Let me just see if my colleague has any further questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair The dashboard hasn't been updated since 2023 That's accurate, isn't it? That sounds right to me But we've had staff there in 2024. Is that accurate? I'm not sure, Councillor.

I started halfway through 2024.

So if the dashboard it's an example If it hasn't been updated since 2023, that signals that this agency, this commission is really not important. That's what it signals to the public if you look at something that hasn't The public will move on. They'll say this agency is not serious if they're not informing the public and I say that because a critical part of the Human Rights Commission for people to know about it What education has taken place over the last several years to educate the public about the importance of the Human Rights Commission.

Yep, so my understanding councillor is since the commission lost its staff again somewhere in the early 20s range There hasn't been that proactive work. And I think you can see that in some of the numbers, right? But we have ensured the website is up to date so people can still reach a real live human and I've worked with groups like 311 to ensure that those phone calls still go through.

Wasn't Evandro Cavallo the executive director?

At some point in that range, if that sounds correct but my understanding is he Left and then is at OPAT now.

Yeah, but when he left, was the position ever filled?

No.

Was there anyone besides Evandro that worked there Was he the only full-time employee?

I'd have to double check. I think there might've been one other at that time, but again, this is well before my time in the company.

But when he left, I think around 2024, was there any person working now?

When I started, no. But I'm not sure he was with us in 2024. But again, I'm happy to go look at the employee records and get back to you all.

So what's going on? So for about two years, more than two years there's been no staff. There has been no commissioners. There hasn't been a sign in the door that hasn't then the home page updated No one answers the phone call from the Human Rights Commission. To me, that signals that the commission is defunded and we can say yeah well someone else answers the at another department can fill in. Public doesn't buy that. Public wants to see someone sitting at their desk, nine to five doing the job working... Well let me ask a question There's seven commissioners, I believe, at the Human Rights Commission. Seven appointed by the mayor. When was the last time we've had human rights commissioners that

were commissioners?

Not since my time. I'd have to double-check the exact dates.

Why would they let go from their job, or why did they leave their job?

I'm not sure that's how I would describe a commissioner changing roles in the sense of you're talking about the commission members.

The commission members, they did their job whether they were paid or not paid but why Why did they leave their job and why weren't those commissioners, and if they did leave the job, why didn't we put in new commissioners?

I just want to clarify. You're talking about the board members, right? Yes. Okay. I'm not sure. This is again before my time but I am not sure they all left. I-I'm not of the current staff.

Well there's no more commissioners that still serve though are there?

I don't believe so. But what I'm saying is, I'm not sure they formally left or didn't just roll into holdover status. I wouldn't describe necessarily a commissioner no longer serving as as leaving something.

Well, they left if they were a commissioner and they either resigned or asked to resign that means they left their job as a commissioner whether it was paid or not paid and at a point when there were zero commissioners, it seems like there's no commissioners now. At a point where there are zero commissiones and there is no staff and there's not sign on the door and nobody answers the phone and the home page is not updated, that means to the public it's defunded. That means we're not prioritizing a way for the public to file a civil rights complaint Yeah, I will. And again, I'm not blaming you. I want to know the facts of what happened so how we can learn from the facts to move forward.

But we do have a lot of unanswered questions, Mr. Chair, and with a lot Unanswered Questions, I think we do Have to do a 17F so we can learn more about what happened Thank you, Mr Chair Did you not want me to answer your question, Councilor?

I apologize. I didn't mean to interrupt.

Yeah, I asked a lot of questions in there or comments. You could take the time.

I was going to try. Sorry. No, that's fine. I do just want to be clear that we do ensure people's phone calls go through. I don't want the public to walk away from today's hearing thinking that if they call the number on the website, it won't be answered. are pointing out that the commission is not fully staffed. But I do want the public to be fully, fully aware that they can call the number on the website. They can use the news via the info form of the website we will do our best to respond but it's not only

I mean, you mentioned it's not fully staffed. That's not correct. It's not staffed at all. And when it's no staffed and there was no money in the budget for the Human Rights Commission. Is that accurate?

I believe you guys put in an amendment.

Yeah, we did. Thank you to Councillor Culpepper and myself and Councillor Worrell and my city council colleagues. Yes, we fight for that. Let's wrap it up. I'm going to stop there because my good friend, Councilor Culpepper, gave me a sharp eye and I listened to my senior citizens here.

Councilor Murphy?

Thank you, Councilor. Thank you Chair. So I just have a few timeline questions so it's clearer to me. When did you start?

I started in the Equity and Inclusion Cabinet in July of 2024 And was your role then what it is now? No, I was just about to clarify that. I started in my current role as deputy chief the following January, so January of 2025.

And was there a deputy chief there when you got there in July?

No, we reworked in that window. So in that July to January window so the titles were different but there was a chief of staff but there wasn't the same reporting structure.

Right, it was reorganized So if I have my dates correctly, Evandro went to OPAT on May 6th of 2024. He did not have any other city job but he did have... So he would have left just weeks before you came to go over to OPAT if you said you started in July of 2024. But, if he was the last director of the Human Rights Commission and that was his last city job, we had a director up through May 3rd of 2024.

Do you have any other questions?

Who would have been in that role through 2023, 2024? Because we're only talking weeks before you started. We're not talking years because when you reference like way before my time it wasn't years ago Evandro, we had a director up through May of 2024. Okay if that's confirmed I'm not sure showing up maybe the next panel knows more so that's what i want to know like how long did that Director positions stay empty.

Yeah, I my understanding is he left earlier than that but again i would have to double check um and then there were some interim staff like he was not the only person there when he left there were that over time, which makes me this is again what I remember from being told by others. My predecessor to answer your question works at BPS now. Who's that? David Martinez. Okay. But the... I've lost my train of thought, Councilor.

No, that's fine. But I think we all agree that We as a council will have to just get a clear timeline because I think that will help us understand, or for myself at least. I do have a question about what happens when a city employee files a complaint and I believe, I know it's happened to me that you then maybe get sent to human resources or you're told to go to the legal department or the Boston Police Department. So if you could explain, I think it's important to know What your relationship is and what this commission, are you asking people then to like walk down a different hallway? Like city employees directly.

Right so I experience discrimination in my workplace or outside? In your workplace.

In my workplace. So you're going as an employee, not as a resident.

As an employee and not as resident. Yeah. My understanding is those things do go through HR. And that is sort of I believe the ordinance's intention is to separate those things It is a little bit different if a resident is discriminated against in the city infrastructure.

Like, if you flip it... And being in the role you're right now do you think that's fair? That employees who I feel like the, you know, And the anonymity, then having to walk down to HR and have to file it as an HR complaint. To I would assume in most cases a boss someone who could retaliate against you

I think there's a couple of things in that question. One, the Equity and Inclusion Cabinet does not oversee the Office of Human Resources or the Office Labor Relations. Those are both in the People Ops Cabinet. and I certainly defer to that team to answer some of these more detailed questions. The city does have its non-discrimination and non harassment policies, right? Things like that we all do sign as employees Those are things created by that team and I'm not sure the ordinance contemplates handling those things.

Does your dashboard or do you have data that keep Do you have a record of how many times a city employee has come to your office or has tried to reach out to this Non-existent Human Rights Commission? No. Even if you are telling them, because it seems like we tell everyone to go somewhere else, because no one can go to the Human Rights Commissioner at this point.

Councilor, let's wrap up so we can move on. I guess. Okay.

Was my question not important or what?

It was important. They're all important, but we have and I did give you two minutes. Let's just wrap it up.

Well, I hope the city employees out there know that I support them also.

I can answer that question. No, it's fine.

I'll find out on my own. Thank you.

Councillor Breadon, we have two minutes.

Thank You. So in terms of Resolutions. If there's a complaint, is there under the original ordinance for the Boston Code for this adjudication of primary as a primary function and then is it Data-Driven Reporting, and then further down in Section 5 it said Mandatory Conciliation Upon Finding of Probable Cause. All parties must attend a mandatory conciliation session facilitated by the commissioner's mediator and if the settlement is reached, the case is closed. And there's a binding conciliation like do we have that sort of apparatus? Like if we close down the Human Rights Commission, do we and so on.

If it's an employment complaint, I'm not talking about a city employee. I'm talking about maybe someone who's got a contractor with the city who is discriminating How do we handle those complaints? Or do we pass those on to MCAD?

So a contractor, someone who has a contract with the city and they're a subcontractor for this person That is a very particular kind of case, and that's something that if that happened to one of my... Say we found out about this happening about one of the contractors working with someone in our cabinet. That is something that we would quickly talk to our ACC's about. There are things There's several steps. That's maybe not a perfect example, but there's sort of a different process when it comes to...

Thank you very much. The infrastructure actually supports adjudication and resolution going through in the absence of having a human rights commission. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And I think what you bring up, Councillor, is that is a good illustration of sort of the interconnectivity of a lot of this work This example is helpful to show us that it's not always just up to this one body. There are other bodies that are doing this work sort of in parallel or can even be in contradiction, Well, this is an opportune moment to

Do a deep dive and see if there are amendments or changes that need to be made. My personal opinion is that the Human Rights Commission is an important structure in the city of Boston. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you councillor just had a couple of questions Maya so what functions did the administration consider important in terms of Referring the matters that came to the Commission, to the Equity Cabinet. What functions were important to the administration when you began to refer complaints that came through the commission to the equity department?

Do you mean when we referred certain cases to separate certain equity cabinet departments?

Let me ask something more basic. That would be helpful. What analysis did the administration conduct To make the determination under the fiscal year 27 budget that the commission should be defunded.

This is a more particular question, thank you. I think we were in a financial situation that was quite tough this year and we had to make a lot of really tough choices. I think about the number of cases that are coming to this commission Truly, the number of calls that my other teams get as you can see heavily outweigh. I am not saying that the work of outreach doesn't impact those numbers right but Say we were able to double them, that's still half of my team that gets the smallest number of referrals.

But some of those cases I referred to your other equity offices were discrimination complaints right?

Which set of cases are you discussing? I'm sorry. We have the 40 cases from calendar year.

All the different cases and complaints and referrals to the equity cabinet What number of those were discrimination complaints?

I think you are talking about the 40 cases that came. No, no, no.

I'm talking about 300, 220, 188, 100 126 to 264, the 913. What percentage of those were discrimination complaints?

I see. So we would know that some of the ones under the Disability Commission.

Do you know how many, what percentage were discrimination complaints?

Not percentage-wise but I can walk you through those numbers and tell you which ones are which.

How many were discriminated cases?

Yes. So the disability, those six ADA grievances? Those are discrimination cases.

Right.

And then the fair housing intake, that's the first step in deciding if something is actually protected class discrimination.

So my question is even more basic. So if I have a discrimination case and I call black male advancement. What records are you making that a discrimination case came to black male advancements?

I think it really depends on the case and on the protected class, but... No.

Do you collect that data?

If the Black Male Advancement Team refers it to Fair Housing, yes. If they refer it to the Disability Commission also yes.

Right what if they don't refer it? Then you don't collect that data

If they were to refer it to MCAD, I think they keep track of those things. But it's not something that they pass up to the cabinet, no. Is that what you're asking?

That's what I'm asking. My final question is this. We know that there's now $200,000 that's going to the commission. How does the administration envision the future of the Boston Human Rights Commission? Now that there is funding there

We only got our final budgets the very first week of July. So I'm still working through with all of my teams to finalize their grants, some of their contracted services We really appreciated the council, obviously for all the amendments this year but there was so much back and forth that it's taken some extra time to finish up the planning for FY27. So I just am not in a position to really answer that question at the moment.

And you do agree that there are reforms that needed to be made Boston Human Rights Commission.

I think I could have a very long conversation with all of you about the ways in which the current ordinance sits and doesn't contemplate especially some of the other teams that I oversee here that are throughout the city. Sure.

As we work and as we review the Human Rights Commission, how can the administration ensure that the essential work of the commission is continued?

So that is what we have striven to do. I would argue that the essential work of the commission is to ensure that we are answering constituents when they reach out. I am not saying that it's the only thing we should be doing, but I do think we owe it to the public as public servants to ensure I think this has been a conversation that has brought some things to light, but I think we would love to discuss further what the council believes is essential above that. But I do think the... The biggest thing we focus on, and I think genuinely we do a strong job with is ensuring that those constituents at the very least feel heard.

And do you agree that the commission should be the Human Rights Commission Should be a place where someone can go and file a discrimination complaint, and receive a hearing on that discrimination complaint.

I think I would go back to my previous answer of, I think there are other entities at the city. And again, I'm not a lawyer that exist after the Human Rights Commission was... The ordinance was written, right?

Well tell me then if you're their other Departments where a person can receive a discrimination complaint hearing in the city, what department is it?

So the two places where that happens.

No I understand that race complaints or sex complaints.

I was not talking about those protected classes. I just, I think from a broad vision of the ordinance if we... Again, I know it doesn't cover those.

But my question is, if you came to the city of Boston With a race discrimination complaint, there's no place in the city of Boston where you could have an adjudicatory hearing.

Not if it was not related to fair housing.

Thank you. Worrell has joined us. You've got five minutes, Councilor.

Thank you, Chair. And in an effort not to repeat any questions, I'm going to save my questions for the next panel.

Thank you, Councilor. We're going to move to the next panel now. Yes. Thank you. Thank I'm just going to call the next panel. I see you're ready. Commissioner McKenna, Leonard Lee, Commissioner Michael Mimolo, Executive Director from the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. And is Carolina Amante here?

Yes. Hello, Carolina.

Is she going to be on? Great. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule. We're gonna start our first panel with Carolina Almonte, and you have six minutes Ms. Almonte.

Thank you so much, and it's Carolina that happens all the time. So happy to be with you all this afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So as I shared my name is Carolina Almonte. I use she her pronouns and I am the proud Executive Director of the City of Cambridge's Human Rights Commission. I also oversee our Commission on Immigrant Rights and Citizenship, and the Cambridge Police Review and Advisory Board I appreciate the opportunity to share more about the Human Rights Commission's mission, its work and the dedicated Cambridge residents who serve as commissioners. We were established back in 1984 as the city's local civil rights enforcement agency. And big picture, our mission is to protect the human rights of everyone who lives in Cambridge, works in Cambridge or visits our city.

The Commission receives and investigates complaints of discrimination under the Cambridge Human Rights Ordinance and also the Fair Housing Ordinances. These complaints involve discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations, and education. Although the Commission does not provide direct legal representation, we investigate complaints as a neutral agency. We facilitate conciliation and mediation when appropriate We often connect community members to relevant legal, social service and advocacy resources. We wanted to have a very dedicated and wonderful attorney investigator, Vanessa Carr who manages the intake and investigation of our discrimination complaints. Our team also consists of a wonderful program manager, Esther Farah who recently joined our team and she leads event planning keeping our websites and public-facing materials updated. And she handles initial community calls

Following an investigation when a complaint is filed with us, I work closely with Vanessa to determine whether there's probable cause to believe that unlawful discrimination occurred. When probable cause is found, commissioners may assist the parties in reaching a resolution through mediation. If the matter cannot be resolved, commissioners may serve as hearing officers in a public hearing. Although we do not have many public hearings or at least not since my time overseeing the Commission. The Commission is also a Fair Housing Assistance Program, or FAP agency. That means that we receive federal funding for our enforcement efforts from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development to support our work. So that includes in the intake investigation, conciliation and resolution of housing discrimination complaints.

Also just wanted to add that in addition to the seven classes that are protected under the federal fair housing law, the Cambridge ordinances provide broader local protections based on characteristics including age, sexual orientation Gender identity, marital status, military status and source of income. The city recently added two new protected classes which are relationship status and family structure as well The Commission's work extends beyond complaint investigations. We also really focus on education and prevention, which I find very central to our mission as well. Our staff provide trainings, workshops and presentations to landlords. We meet with employers, business owners, city employees, students, community organizations and community members. These efforts address topics such as fair housing overall, and that's the highest number of complaints that we get.

Reasonable accommodations, source of income discrimination, sexual harassment in housing, harassment based on National Origin or Race, and other emerging civil and human rights issues. Commission staff also collaborate regularly with other city departments. We were recently restructured, so we now live under the Equity and Inclusion Department in the City of Cambridge which has really strengthened our ability to coordinate across departments and align our work with the city's broader commitments to anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion. The commission itself is comprised of 11 volunteer members who live in Cambridge, and they reflect the diversity of our community including populations that have historically experienced discrimination. Our commissioners bring a wide range of professional expertise, community knowledge, lived experience to their work.

They help us identify human rights concerns, they hear from residents and subject matter experts, and they help shape outreach and educational priorities that the Commission staff can implement. Commissioners also review staff determinations and settlement agreements, as I mentioned earlier participate in mediation and hearing processes when appropriate. To prepare them for these responsibilities, commissioners receive training on fair housing law, on mediation, on standards for reviewing staff determinations because they're not required to be lawyers. Some are some aren't. The Open Meeting Law and the State's Ethics Law. This training helps ensure that they carry out their responsibilities fairly, impartially, and effectively In a typical year, our commission investigates approximately 30 to 40 complaints and we successfully mediate roughly 40% of our cases.

Resolutions are often monetary compensation, anti-discrimination training for the respondents and sometimes also in addition changes to policies or practices. Because we are embedded in the Cambridge community, we understand local institutions, conditions, languages and emerging concerns. This allows us to not only respond to the individual complaints that are filed with our office, but also to identify broader patterns and use enforcement education outreach, collaboration as I mentioned and policy change to help prevent future discrimination. At its core, our commission works to ensure that Cambridge remains a community where everyone is treated with dignity, has meaningful access to their rights and that there's a local place for folks to turn to when they experience discrimination. Thank you all for the opportunity to speak with you, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Our left to our right, let's start with Commissioner McKenna. You have six minutes.

Yes? So I'm Margaret McKenna. I am trained as a civil rights lawyer in employment discrimination. I sued police departments all over the country for the Department of Justice, in addition I was the executive director of IORA, which was International Association of Statutory Civil Rights Organizations. MCAD, Philadelphia Human Rights Commission. The Boston human rights commission. So I was the executive director. I actually years back trained all the MCAD Folks, when Gloria Putnam, famous Gloria Putnom was there. So I know this field really well. and in addition, I've been on the Boston School Committee. Chair Dessy has been around in and out of government forever. It's been actually frustrating for Leonard and I to listen

Today, there's a difference between constituent services and legal adjudication of cases. It is nice to have constituent service. Nice to have. You have a right to file cases and get them adjudicated in a system that is laid out in the ordinance. Those are two separate things. I left the Human Rights Commission where I was the chair when the Chief Equity and Inclusion took the staff of the Human Rights Commission and had them report to her, not to the commissioners. We, Leonard and I, and others, and I've talked to the others had no say in what the staff did anymore. It was up to The Chief of Equity and Inclusion.

So you have to decide, is this an independent agency or is it an advisory committee to the mayor? and that is a big distinction. If you see, one of the things that happened is the UMass folks did a report that basically looked at statutory human rights commissions around the country and said, you have to be independent. otherwise you're an advisory committee. So the question that was asked, if I'm a city employee and I've been discriminated against, I am not gonna go to the City Human Resources Committee. I want to be protected in my rights, that's why you have a human rights commission and we had that experience and if there's ever been a time... I'm old right? Been around forever

and this is such an unbelievably difficult time for some of us to watch what's going on in terms of hate speech that is now the norm. As opposed to, people used to be afraid to say the things they're saying. They maybe believed them but now it's like okay to say them so if you can say them you also act in a certain way So if there's ever been a time when an adjudicatory body needed to exist, it's now. We have to protect the rights of people of color, One of the issues we brought up was transgender, not only discrimination but violence. At the time Leonard and I were there, we had Proud Boys walking on the streets with masks intimidating people at Brigham and Women's.

So there are times then I think, and these are the times that organizations like the Human Rights Commission needs to exist. One of the things we were asked to do by then mayor, for instance was to follow up on the police reform commission's recommendations. We did scorecards about what they had been doing but when our staff started to work for the equity Cabinet, we had no staff to do what we wanted to do. The only thing that was done was by now followed me as the chair was a professor from UMass continue to do some reports, but there's been no staff for years. It isn't when Evandro left To go to the police accountability, it was two years before that.

So there's been no staff so it basically hasn't been functioning We did a lot of interesting things. We did broadband access, we brought all of the providers into hearings to ask them why there was a difference between the costs in Roxbury and Mattapan to get the same services that you got in the back bay. And as a result, they actually did something to improve that. We had subpoena power None of the constituent services that work for the mayor have subpoena power. The Housing Authority does, but there's no executive director of the Housing Authority. My recommendation is you bring housing under of the Human Rights Commission, which are both legal entities with subpoena power, with adjudication power,

Give some teeth and real expertise to the organization. I don't think there's been a time when We have seen such a struggle for so many. My friend Leonard here, in terms of black boys and men and what's happening to them, they're disappearing from higher education. Why is that? What's happening in the schools? There are so many issues that it is exactly the place where the Human Rights Commission should shine. So I'm thrilled to be here. I am thrilled as a civil rights lawyer to be talking about this. I've spent my whole life talking about opportunities for those that don't have them. So even to be here and to be able to do this, I feel privileged and I think it's so important. So, I urge you... And I think you'll hear from others.

MCAD is a great organization but has a backlog two to three years and I don't blame them. The staff is struggling, but if there's ever a time this is the time to bring this back as an independent, not in constituent services, independent entity to deal with some of the issues we've heard today.

Thank you Commissioner.

Commissioner Lee, you have six minutes. First and foremost, I want to say thank you to Councilors Culpepper, Flynn, Worrell, Breadon. I'm from Boston, born and raised, wasn't busing anyone In this city who thinks the Human Rights Commission in Boston shouldn't be and should be under the mayor, they must be sleeping. I grew up in a very racial tensioned city which it still is as I travel around. I'm a former deputy commissioner of public health, bureau director of Public Health and Injury Violence Prevention very well known in the community advocate for virtually any and everything people still coming today like I'm a city councilor. So, I have my finger on the pulse in terms of when people are feeling disenfranchised because the color of their skin or their sexual orientation

My colleague here, who I highly respect and was one of the reasons why I wanted to get on the commission because I didn't want to be a part of a circus. So under Wallace, she brought in a lot of talented educated advocates to be on the commission who will not sit and just go along to get along or get along to go along, who would really advocate for the little man or woman whatever their situation was. So I was really hopeful that we are going to change the narrative of this city One person at a time, where people will feel comfortable about coming to a commission knowing that they may not get what they want but they're going to be treated fairly, humanely and it's not gonna go because it's offending an administration to the back burner. We did some pretty amazing things in the short time that we were here, and as my fellow commissioners said

You know, one of the things that we talked about a lot was the transgender piece which was I mean it was bad. It still is bad. Another thing was the human rights for black men in terms of discrimination that's been going on forever, but also changing the narrative of this city. I get to travel around this country quite a bit and people to this day still say City of Boston is one of their most racist cities in America And I fight that every single time to tell them that is not the case. However, when I have someone who works for the city of Boston and someone who discriminates against them knowing I'm on the commission comes to me and says, I went to everyone. And no one wants to hear me because it's offending the administration. It makes me feel like we're just going along to get along and still keeping that narrative which is going to travel throughout the country. I think we have had an opportunity to help change that

But as you can see and as my colleague said to me, said to everyone today the importance of having an independent body being able to advocate for the person who's been discriminated against or treated unfairly is not only crucial, it's necessary. It's humane but for someone to talk something different especially with the history that we have, I mean what's sleeping? And as I said earlier, we did some pretty amazing things. We connected with a lot of people and interestingly enough, people would come to us because of our relationships of other things, because they know our integrity is in place And they would bring stuff up to us that maybe they wouldn't bring up to other people, but they knew because of our past that we would do something and not just sit around and accept it to make it happen. I mean, we advocated to have a staff so that we can get the work done that we needed.

However it didn't make any sense for the staff to report to the mayor because therefore the question that we always had is what happens if its from the administration? You can't police yourself. So I'm here Two reasons. One, I'm proud of my city councilors for bringing this up because this is a bold step to maintain something to keep the integrity of our city in place. I want to let people know the importance of human rights, not only in the city of Boston but throughout the entire state. Because it's happening in our city Hand over fist. You can sleep on it if you want, but it exists. So having a human rights commission is just really, really, important to make that happen And now it's the other commissioners who were here. I mean, we just had some pretty amazing people on the commission and I was listening and I never got a letter to say I wasn't their commissioner.

I never got a notice saying that, you know. I looked on the site and they didn't have my name anymore and I was like oh what does this mean? So the way, not only how we were disrespected but how the city was disresected around one of the most crucial pieces of this city, human rights. So, any questions? I'll leave it to my colleague who I know very well. Thank you Commissioner.

Attorney Memolo You've got six minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and to clear the record I am actually not an attorney so but thank you to you and thank you two colleagues here on the council for Entertaining the MCAD today in this discussion, I do applaud your efforts to strengthen and improve Brennan, and as well My colleagues up here, this is truly a time and moment where strengthening civil rights protections is the utmost. I won't sit here today to try and tell any city or town how they should move forward in establishing their human rights commissions. What I will do is give some context from the state side, from the MCAD side of our interactions with human rights commissions over the years.

Generally speaking, human rights commission were established around the mid-80s into the mid to late 90s with the purpose of attempting to assist the MCAD in its longstanding backlog. as well as to create community-based entities that could help address discrimination complaints closer to where people lived and worked. However, in practice most of these human rights commissions face significant operational challenges. Most lack the necessary funding to support staffing Instead, they were relying heavily on volunteers to perform functions such as intake, complaint review, witness interviews, mediations, investigations. While these volunteers were very well intentioned and no doubt committed to public service, they often did not possess the legal training or specialized knowledge of State and Federal Anti-Discrimination Laws, Jurisdictional Requirements or Apical Statute of Limitations. As a result

complainants experienced delays that jeopardized their ability to preserve their rights before the MCAD or the EEOC. In certain instances, cases remain with local human rights commissions for extended periods of time before being referred to the appropriate agency resulting in missed deadlines and impacting critical evidence. During the late 1990s into approximately 2001, The MCAD entered into work share agreements with several municipal human rights commissions. That was done to leverage local resources and, again, reduce case processing times and assist the MCAD. Ultimately, these partnerships proved to be ineffective. Unfortunately investigations took substantially longer than anticipated. The resulting findings frequently lacked the evidentiary development necessary for MCAD to accord them substantial weight.

Consequently, we're required to conduct our own independent investigations effectively duplicating efforts and expanding additional agency resources In many cases, the MCAD had to start the investigation from the very beginning. The underlying concept of human rights commissions in assisting the MCID is very worthwhile However, our experience has shown that local commissions are rarely funded or staffed at a sufficient level. to perform the complex investigation, adjudicatory or mediation-based functions that are required in assessing a discrimination case. Additionally, not true for Boston as the Commissioner adequately and superbly announced. Most HRCs generally do lack the enforcement authority or the subpoena power

Investigative structure or established alternative dispute resolution programs to be able to be a heavy hand in anti-discrimination claims. and even further, most including the Boston HRC. are required by their own ordinances to actually file with the MCAD or the EEOC to ensure the protection of state and federal rights. And just as a reminder, in Massachusetts Most claims of discrimination require the exhaustion at the MCAD, meaning you need to file at the NCAD before you can remove your claim to court. This exhaustion cannot be satisfied by filing with a local HRC. Based on again our experience, local HRCs are most effective when they are focused on community education

Early Resolution initiatives, such as mediation when available. Outreach and public awareness, helping residents understand their rights and the remedies available to them. These functions complement the MCAD statutory enforcement role and provide meaningful value to the civil rights ecosystem without duplicating investigative and adjudicatory responsibilities that are uniquely invested with the MCAD. As we move along at the commission, We are about, and I see the clock ticking down here, about to unveil an endeavor upon a great new initiative of online filing of complaints of discrimination. Truly people will be able to file where they are and at a time that is convenient for them. and we are looking towards reestablishing our longstanding commitment to local HRCs, which is actually statutorily required by our advisory board.

And hopefully having HRCs leverage Thank you very much for your time and happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Councilor Flynn, you have five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Margaret, and to Leonard for the Mass Commission Against Discrimination. And to my good friend as well, Cassandra, for being here. So I listen closely to all your public comments and respect the work you have done and worked with Margaret for a number of years at the Human Rights Commission. But does the city, Margaret? Does the City of Boston, does the Mayor's Office unilaterally just have the ability to defund an organization, defund a department if... If they don't want it, maybe I should have asked it to the previous person from the mayor's office but if something is

Thank you very much.

My answer would be yes, you should. But in essence several years ago they basically defunded it because we hadn't had a staff For three years, maybe. And the only work that was being done as volunteers was a professor from UMass who is my predecessor, my successor as the chair, who was doing some work in terms of reports. But other than that, there was no one there to do the work because the staff when they were there were reporting to the chief equity officer and then the staff was gone, there was no staff. So there's been no activity at all for years. And what we heard this morning from the deputy chief those are constituent services? Those are like, you know, not a placket for my car because of a disability.

Those are not discrimination complaints There are subpoenas and hearings and adjudication or even attempts for mediation resolution. Those are very different, and I think one of the issues with the city is understanding the distinction between constituent services and rights being adjudicated.

I know we had the Deputy Director of Operations that testified. I believe the director should have been here testifying. In fact, the director...I met with the director about this issue when I was city council president. And nothing against the deputy director, but I think the director would have had more Thank you very much. Not criticizing the Deputy Director because she just didn't know the answers. But let me ask Leonard a question, and Leonard and Margaret and Cassandra But Leonard, you've been around a long time. And we've had a lot of racial turmoil in the 50s and 60s and 70s and 80s.

I'm not that old. But here's my question, Leonard. Certainly, we have made progress. But to continue that progress you need to stay on top of the issue and you mentioned You know, you travel around the country and people still criticize Boston. I hear the same criticism too. I traveled to D.C. in support of disability rights for veterans, and I hear this same criticism. But imagine hearing the criticism and then that person knowing that this is the city that defunded the Boston Human Rights Commission. That's what's apparent to me, It shows what your priorities are. I just want to see what your thoughts might be on that, Leonard.

Well, you know, I love my city so I defend it And it's kind of hypocritical in a lot of ways when I tell somebody, I'm a human rights commissioner and I'm dealing with this stuff and perception 24-7. And not being able to articulate The commitment that the city has in terms of fighting not only the perception, but to to have something where people can honestly feel they're gonna be heard and something's going to be done at some level. But when you hear, this is not I'm defunding polls parking ticket polls We're talking about defunding an entity that some people lose their lives behind it. Some people have serious mental issues behind it, some people wind up leaving the city and never coming back.

And the biggest thing of all is the perception that is given to the world So if someone looking through the window, it looks like they don't give a damn. And so that's really, really hard for me You know, I'm not moving. I love this city and I'm going to continue to fight the narrative around this city is a racist city in the world. I'm gonna continue the fight regardless with administration or without it But it speaks volumes, Councilor, when someone defunds a human rights commission that could be an independent body to support the people who are being disenfranchised at any level.

Thank you a lot. Mr. Chair, could I ask a question?

One final question.

Yeah, I wanted to ask Cassandra a quick question of great respect for Cassandra the work she does in advocating for persons with disabilities But Cassandra, did you as a disability rights advocate, did know the process of how to file a complaint or Communication with Human Rights Commission? Or did you know about the Human Rights commission, or did you ever receive any type of Briefing about it, because I respect you and the work you do. And I'm just asking the question is because one of my goals is really to make this more known for all the public and Cassandra, thanks for being here. I just wanted to hear what your thoughts might be.

Hi everyone. I did not I did not know about these commissions until much later on in the beginning of my disability advocacy here in Boston. I never really got a briefing about how this works. I had to learn through trial and error, and it really helps if people especially such as myself with lived experience with lifelong disabilities would be given the opportunity to have a chance to be briefed on said agencies that exist. Because it gives us a lot of time to feel heard and seen and to actually receive helpful support.

And because there's always a roadblock in the way whenever we're trying to go through with fighting for our rights And when we are stuck at that roadblock, this is left for us to feel disparaged and to never go through with what we're going after. And I hope that answers the question directly.

Cassandra, yes it does answer my question. You answered it completely. and thank you very much for being here, Cassandra.

Thank you. Thank You Mr. Councilor and Cassandra will have two minutes to testify once we finish with this panel. I want to move to our other co-sponsors Councilor Worrell, you have five minutes.

Thank you Chair and thank you to the panel for serving and also being here lending your voice in this conversation. One of my questions is You described, I mean you touched on this a little bit. Independent entity or you said constituent services versus Adjudication. Just for the public, can you just go a little bit deeper on the differences on what the commission was doing based off of what you heard from the administration? What they plan on doing and why that's not The right way forward.

Yes, thank you. The difference is if I'm a constituent services, I can go and complain about something. And it may or may not be resolved and then that's it. But if I file a complaint there's a process which has to be followed in terms of hearings. We can subpoena people, we could subpoeno a company. Suppose somebody's being discriminated against by a company, we can subpono the company to come in and testify. They have to do that. Constituent services, they don't have any authority to do it and they don t do that so there's a huge difference between having legal authority to call people in and try to resolve disputes when you have both a carrot and a hook, I mean both. But here we have the authority to bring people in and try

Right. And do you see any other, I mean your time being on the commission, do you think any other city department that could take on that role if we with a city that the city decided to eliminate the Human Rights Commission?

No. They don't have the legal authority to do that. The only place is the Housing Commission, which now actually doesn't have a director or staff So they're in the same situation, but they would have the authority if they were funded and treated as they should be like HRC.

And then you spoke about the well Commissioner Lee, you talked about how this all happened. Right? Any conversation prior to the removal of staff, prior to consultant reporting out what they think should happen to Human Rights Commission? A conversation between you and the Chief of Equity to say, let's try to do better. Let's go through an improvement plan Was there any such conversation?

It was disrespectful in a lot of ways. I mean, I just want you guys to picture who was on the commission. We had the dream team of advocates who knew the law, who fought on the street every day or advocating for people who are being disenfranchised. We didn't have a bunch of people sitting there eating cupcakes. Once they left their commission, they were doing stuff 24-7. That was their life. And that's one of the main reasons why I wanted to be on the commission. I love being with people who think like I do in terms of wanting to change and make a difference in this community. So for me, To your question, it becomes really, really important to have those conversations which we never had. We were like, what the hell? Excuse me. We was like, What the heck is going on? And then, well it's going to be a report here and I was like what do we have a say? No.

So we will be disrespected not only for us being on the commission, but for our time, for our effort, for relationships all that. And we still stay.

Right and did you Have any conversation with the consultant that issued the report? Was there any So what consultant are you talking about?

There were two reports. One I mentioned, which came from UMass Boston. It's about 30 pages long and it recommends being independent. What I understand is that there was a $50,000 retainer for some consultant. I tried to get that report but was unable to. I have no idea what it says.

Right and then haven't reached out to either of the past commissioners.

We haven't reached out to any other commissioners, I know that because I've spoken to all of the commissioners Leonard and I served with.

And then a question for Executive Director Almonte Hope I said your name right. What would you say to the city of Boston who is currently in this, thinking about disbanding or eliminating The department. What would be your message to the chief of equity, city councilors in the administration?

Sure, thank you very much for your question. To me I would respond to say that I wholeheartedly believe in human rights commissions. I've been with the city of Cambridge for six years and I'm very proud of our work, and I think for Human Rights Commission to be successful it has to be Well funded, there has to be staff available to not only oversee the commission but investigate complaints. You know and I'm thankful that When I became executive director, there was already a strong foundation rules of procedure. As I mentioned before we get funding from the federal government as well And I think we're really proud of what we do, but it does require a lot of coordination and a clear understanding Thank you so much for joining us today.

I think our benefit is we're much faster. We resolve most of our complaints in under 100 days, and I think As I mentioned before, the education we bring out in the community. The fact that we try to mediate a lot of our cases and we're very successful and that's why we really don't have many public hearings You know, I'm really proud of our model and I'm of course happy to continue this conversation to partner with the City of Boston which is a really important partner for us to see ways that It can continue on this path forward to hopefully better serve the community.

Thank you.

Sure.

Thank You, Councilor Worrell. Brayden, you have five minutes.

Thank you Mr Chair thank you all for being here I came in not having no preconceived notions about what i was going to learn and I've learned a lot this afternoon and I really thank you for your service I've been looking at not just other human rights commissions, and I just glanced at the webpage for Cambridge. They have it there that the Human Rights Commission in Cambridge is a city law enforcement agency. That's very different from, as you mentioned Margaret, a constituent services operation. Could you speak to just How important the independent law enforcement aspect of it is in terms of how a human rights commission could function. I know you've traveled the country

Educating people about this in terms of best practices, what it looked like and what do we need to bring back our Human Rights Commission to its full force and effectiveness going forward.

Thank you, I appreciate that. I think the independence is key. It protects the individual who is reporting discrimination if they It reports to the mayor's cabinet. The mayor's Cabinet is part of a group of people that report to the mayor. This way, you know, that person is protected feeling they can come forward and be protected and that will not get back to whoever their lodging a complaint against because there are procedures to protect that individual. So I think it's very important, I don't even think this is sort of purposeful on the part of the city, I-I don't think there's a clear understanding of the difference between complaining about something Help me with, as opposed to I was discriminated against and I'm afraid.

The difference between constituent services and law enforcement.

Yes, totally. And a law enforcement agency is very different than somebody saying help me out if you can.

You mentioned the importance of community education and I feel that That's a very important role because I remember hearing a union organiser in Belfast talking to people about human rights too. Public Cleaners in the Hospitals. And they said, you've got human rights. And he says well what does that mean? Then they said well you are humans and you have rights. He says well that's the best kept FN Secret I've ever heard of. So people don't know what their rights are a lot. Amazingly, people don t really appreciate their rights until it's It's really spelled out to them. In terms of good practices in public community education, what's your thoughts on that from MCAD's point of view?

Yeah, thank you, Councilor. We actually have an entire unit dedicated to that. We have a training and outreach unit that is consistently going throughout the Commonwealth Educating individuals, businesses, places of public accommodation, housing authorities and housing providers. about what the law in Massachusetts is relative to discrimination. We also partner very closely with all of the cities and towns. We do leave it up to the Municipality to contact us to say we'd like you to bring this here, but we're out there doing those rather consistently. It's truly you know what you know and you only know what if somebody tells you. And at least from our perspective

Outreach and education is the only way that people are going to understand that an HRC exists, that the MCAD quite honestly exists. I can't tell you how many times We come across individuals that say, I didn't even know who you were or what you did and that always breaks my heart no matter how much We do outreach, whether it's through social media. We've partnered with the MBTA for the past many years to do extensive statewide PSAs, so really getting the message out I think is an incredibly important piece of any HRC and just making people understand they exist and what services they can provide to them.

I know again looking back at other jurisdictions they sometimes combine their human rights ordinance and the oversight, their Human Rights Commission I think that was my point I was trying to make earlier to the previous panelists. The Human Rights Commission can act as an umbrella organization to enforce the law and adjudicate complaints. In terms of... Mr Chair, if you don't mind... Does that seem like a reasonable, given that we are basically cutting back on our fair housing section as well? Like does it seem like an reasonable way forward to put those two things under the same umbrella?

as a way to strengthen both and keep their strength and make sure that those laws are being enforced.

It's one of the things we suggested as commissioners, because they're both law enforcement agencies. So I think it makes a great deal of sense to have them separated out from We found

because we investigated a bunch of HRCs throughout the country, like in Seattle, San Diego. There was three or four, actually it was five or six that we looked at and some of the most successful models were exactly what you're talking about. I even went to South Africa, when I told them I was on the Human Rights Commission they thought I was God because they said you actually can Enforce something when somebody does something wrong to you. Yep. Another example in Bahia, Brazil. If you say something that's discriminatory, you will go to jail and they're very serious about that because I was talking to the Human Rights Commission and I was like, you have powers like that? They're like, yes we take it very serious around any type of discrimination. So again the model that you are talking about has been proven to be very successful in other cities and towns throughout the country. Thank you, Councilor.

Can I just say all of us are available after? Leonard and I, Annie Russo, Robert McAkron. All of us who were on a very committed to this and we'll do anything to help you and provide any support and advice.

That's exactly what I was going to ask you. Mr. Lamola, let me ask you a couple of questions regarding... Boston residents increasingly relying on MCAD. What impact is it having now if we don't get the commission In order to handle some of these cases, what impact will it have on intake later and on investigation and complaint resolution timeliness?

Mr. Chairman, do you mean in terms of the impact on the MCAD?

Yeah, because right now they're referring most of the cases are coming to MCAD that would be handled by the Washington Human Rights Commission. Point is, if we keep referring all these cases to you, what's the impact on MCAD and your resources, intake, investigations, and timeliness?

Yeah, it's a great question. And I would say from our perspective the MCAD is probably positioned as well as it has been in many decades to really be able We have recently gone through an entire statutory reorganization that was passed by the governor and the legislature relative to reorganizing our board. Doing certain changes to the position of the executive director, which hadn't existed before. As well as the new commission stepping in and really going and listening to So many individuals that made comments on our procedural regulations relative to really trying to expedite the process, make it a better experience. I think we've said it, we don't Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. and we're starting to see the fruits of that come to fruition now. So from our perspective, the impact is something we can probably absorb. But again, we do value the local HRCs and the types You know, types of information, types assistance that they can give to people to help us and you know to really be a resource for their constituents.

What fundamental changes was made with this recent reorganization.

Yes, so we went from a commission board again where we're talking about independence. The MCAD is an independent state agency, so do not report to the executive or legislative branch We have a commission that was formally appointed by the governor. There were three members. We now have a board of five, three of which are appointed by Governor and two of which appointed by Attorney General Those individuals are appointed to five-year terms. The chair is designated by the governor and is the sole full time employee of the commission, the other commissioners are all Per Diem, or volunteer commissioners. Really now the paradigm has shifted to the agency taking control and overseeing Investigations and moving the cases in a meaningful way with the commission being sort of the appeal board relative to after decisions are made to be the final say on

Thank you very much. Not only the investigative arm, but we are also the adjudication arm where we have our prosecutions and hearing officers rendering decisions after full adjugatory hearings. which are then subject to appeal and review by the full commission. Those were really the major tenants of the legislation and then to sort of dovetail with that was the procedural regulations and their update. So the commission, the new commission came in there was a great deal of changes that needed to be made just relative to the reorganization

The fact that the agency was implementing new technology and a new case management system, an online filing portal that was not otherwise contemplated. Under the old regulations and instilling new, I think innovative ways to move cases more quickly and get people decisions in their option and ability to remove to court in a more

What best practices have you seen across Massachusetts for the local human rights commissions?

I will say, not just because the executive director is online but we have had a great deal of interaction with the Cambridge HRC. They really are committed to that organization, as the executive director mentioned. The funding is there. The staffing is there they have a solid ordinance and way to enforce and adjudicate discrimination complaints. They've got great leadership too, and I think they're one of the ones that we would probably look to and say you know they're really doing things well and you know from our perspective we have very little interaction with other HRCs at this moment in time again it's a priority of mine and a priority if the agency once our new Advisory Board is impaneled, but again both the Governor and Attorney General have appointing authority for those positions.

to really get back to our roots and have that board be the conduit in a bridge between the municipal HRCs and the MCAD, and strengthen those relationships.

Did you get a copy of the draft ordinance? I did, yes. And I don't want to try and put you on the spot but take it back look at it and then give us what recommendations you think need to be made whether we're working on it's a work in progress It's just a draft, but we do want you to take it back and look at it. And then we can talk about it after you've had some An opportunity to digest it, even with your general counsel. You may want to share with him and take a look at it.

Absolutely. I did appreciate the clause of not duplicating efforts with the EEOC and the MCAD. Resources are very precious these days all around, whether at the municipal level or at the state level, so I appreciate that.

Thank you. Commissioner McKenna and Lee, both of you can answer these one at a time. What contributed to the Boston Human Rights Commission becoming inactive? What were the major contributions that May the commission become an active.

I will say quickly, giving the staff and taking the staff away, not giving us the authority to manage the commission. and feeling like we're not just placeholders, that we have some impact to help support those who are being disenfranchised at any level.

No, I agree. When we were told that the staff would now report to the equity cabinet, we had no authority over the staff anymore so going in two different directions, the commissioners and the staff. Let me also say about MCAD is If I'm correct, there's a significant number of MCAD complaints that come from Boston more than anywhere else. It is a burden on MCAD. And if there were a relationship with MCAD of a very professional staff in Boston, it would help Boston and it would MCAD and it would help the citizens of Boston be responded to in a timely manner.

Ms. Almonte?

Yes.

I had a couple questions for you Regarding Cambridge, the Human Rights Commission, the role and the scope of your local enforcement authority. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Sure, so the scope of our enforcement authority is detailed in both of the ordinances or local laws that we are charged with enforcing. So as I mentioned before, the fair housing ordinance and the human rights ordinance and that details our complaint process, our commission structure, what kind of outcomes are available if discrimination is found. Things like that. So those are the laws that we enforce and then also the Fair Housing Act through our partnership with HUD.

What about damages?

If a case gets to a hearing, which as I mentioned does not happen very often there can be civil damages that are mandated at the end of our process and we do have authority. I believe it's $300 from the date of the first alleged discriminatory act or something, or around 10,000 per violation. But again, that's at the end of a hearing process. We do have authority to issue damages or penalties.

Would you say $10,000 per violation?

Yes, I believe so. I'll have to double check but I believe that's what our ordinance says.

And what about punitive damages?

We do not, I think MCD does. I know Mikey could clarify that for me but we do not issue those under our local laws

And with regard to enforcement and education and outreach, how do you balance that?

That's a good question. I'll say The meat of our work is definitely our enforcement activities. I think our attorney investigators said that even in Just the last few weeks, we received about 16 to 20 new intakes which for again a three-person department is a good number. and a lot of our enforcement activities are dependent on the kind of cases we receive so if we see that we're getting an influx of you know disability related cases or National origin discrimination cases or sexual harassment based cases, then often we'll frame our outreach and community engagement efforts along those lines. And then figure out which Did you get a copy of the draft ordinance that we were working with? I did, yeah.

I didn't have too much time to review it but I'm happy to similarly provide the feedback.

No, I wouldn't expect you to try and comment now but I do want to talk to you about that at some point. Take some time and review it and Mark it up or mark it down, mark it around however you want to mark it up because we need outside help also especially from one of the Human Rights Commission that we think is doing really good work, especially hearing from the MCAD. Just one last question. Based on your experience, what best practices from Cambridge could Boston consider adopting?

It's a big question. What I'm most proud of is, as I've kind of said a few times really our ability to You know, remain neutral and thoroughly investigate our complaints so that you know as maybe not surprising a lot of Findings or lack of probable cause, because the legal standard to make a discrimination complaint is a little bit difficult. But when we issue out determinations, we are really thorough and we Thank you so much for joining us. Hear You Out made sure that we were available to meet in person on the phone with an interpreter on the line. If you want to mail in a complaint, that's fine. We have translated forms

Really just thinking about how can people actually use us and trust that our job is really to leave no stone unturned. I'm proud of our model. Again, I think we're small but mighty is how I always describe us and I think were really diligent in our work You know, and I'm really excited that to be a part of this conversation because I think Boston is an incredible city. And I think as I've said before as well human rights commissions are really invaluable tool to have. And if there's ways we can Support and also lessening the burden on MCAD and making it so that more folks just have another avenue to use, especially now more than ever which we know There's been an uptake over the last few years. Yeah, I think just really having like a clear system. We have clear policies protocols. We lean on the law department if there's any

And who do you report to? I report to the Chief of Equity and Inclusion.

And how does that work?

So she's my direct supervisor, as we've been researching- You don't report to commissioners. Not necessarily. So our commissioners are advisory to the city manager and the City Council.

Okay, great. And what's your budget?

Our budget is relatively small because we have the HUD funding, which pays for a portion of our attorney investigator salary about 40K. We usually get a grant around that much per year. and it's dependent on how many cases we resolve. And then typically, we get an additional grant that we would use for community engagement but we haven't received that grant in the last year or two. The rest of our budget is covered by the city.

Are you a HUD equivalency agency?

Yeah, Fair Housing Assistance Program.

Thank you. Councilor Flynn I'll give you two minutes. I want to get to the public

I wonder if we could ask you to see the report that the consultant did. It's not online and I'd love to see what they recommended.

Margaret, is that the Is that the report you mentioned, the UMass report? No.

There's a consultant who was hired for $50,000 to do a report on recommendations about what to do. And we haven't seen it, and it's not online. No, I know. That's an important topic.

I would assume, Margaret, the... The report is public, although we haven't seen it. Mr. Chair, through you, could you ask the administration for the report? And I believe it is a public report. It should be... I believe that the report should be posted online if the city is using city resources money to pay an organization to do a report. I think that's a public report.

Councilor, we will check and... You've got one minute.

No, I know, but these are important. I want to say thank you to the Mass Commission Against Discrimination for... helping Boston or for dealing with the cases that Boston should be dealing with. I want to acknowledge that and say thank you, I appreciate it, and the residents of Boston appreciate it. Thank you sir. And let me just ask, Margaret or Leonard do you know what the purpose of the report was?

It was to recommend the future structure of the Human Rights Commission.

Our understanding was that consultant was going around the country and looking at models that work, and then coming back and giving a solid recommendation how we should structure the commission.

So, and I know we haven't read it. We don't have it. But do you think that report was based on basically the decision of the city to defund the Human Rights Commission? Or we just don't know?

No.

Okay, my final question to Margaret and I've known Margaret for many years. Margaret but the way the city of Boston Human Rights Commission is written into law, is there anything wrong with That writing, does it need to be changed? Does it need updated? Is there anything that we're missing in the way it was written 84? Certainly times have changed, but what is your recommendation on that?

Well my recommendation is who it reports to. That's the basic. It can't report to the mayor's cabinet, not to equity. The General Counsel, if you want it. Or just administratively someplace. But it can't report to the Chief of Equity.

Okay. Leonard, I also want I want to say thank you to you for the work that you have done. Let me just ask one general question to you, Leonard. ensure that the public knows about how to file a complaint to the Human Rights Commission and to educate people in Boston about how important HRC is to the residents of Boston.

I think it's essential. I mean, I can honestly say through my network. Once people found out that we were associated with the commission, our phones started ringing. So imagine if there was a big education process throughout the city around the Human Rights Commission and its function. Phones will be ringing off the hook. It's crucial to get that information out there.

Thank you, Leonard. Thank Mr. Chair, I think we only have six more questions.

Well, please submit them in writing and I'll forward them to the panelists. Let me just say this, Commissioner McKenna, Commissioner Lee Mr. Mimola and Director Almonte, really appreciate your testimony today, your commitment to seeing that the Boston Human Rights Commission become active and effective in the near future. And we'll be talking to you, working with you as we I begin to finalize the ordinance that we're working on. I think it's essential that we have an effective Boston Human Rights Commission, especially in Boston

And I just want to thank all of you for your testimony and for your commitment to ensuring that Boston becomes a city that other cities can look forward to in terms of human rights and carrying out The best interests of the citizens. We want to move now to our public testimony. Thank you so much, and we'll be in touch about that report. I know what report you're talking about. We'll be and just thank you so much for working to serve the city of Boston. Thank you, Director Mamello. And thank you, our director Malte will be in touch with you real soon. Thank you. I want to call up Carolyn. Carolyn, I think they're already there. Rachel and Heather? Come on up, and you can sit in the panel seat if you want.

Come on out. We've got Carolyn up here. We're breaking precedent today. We'll put you in the panelists. We got Cassandra. I saw you on your way here. I saw how excited you were to get here, Cassandra. You were walking so fast. You're walking faster than those cars are driving. So I know you wanted to get there. Thank you for being patient and waiting all that time.

Was that you in that car?

That was me riding by.

Oh! He hugged that real good. Who is that?

You each have two minutes. Look, I really thank you for being patient and waiting all that time you've been here. We'll start with Cassandra and then we'll go to Rachel and then Cassandra, you have two minutes.

Hi my name is Cassandra Xavier and I'm a disability advocate out of the north end of Boston and I have a slight concern to raise Well, first I want to say thank you very much for having me here. I couldn't wait to get here to speak with everyone. But the concern I have to raise is the ethics in which the police department interacts with persons with disabilities especially when they call for help. And in turn, it leaves some of us feeling victimized and in the end of the interaction with Boston Police Department It left a not so good feeling, and I don't really have a lot of dealings with the police department. So when I was asked information, a police officer asked me for my social security number And I was taken back by that question.

And because I was uncomfortable and I was a little scared, if I refused to give that, I was afraid something was going to happen to me And so I begrudgingly gave him my social security number, and I didn't feel good about that because it's very tender information that I don't think anyone needs to be giving out to anyone for any reason. communicating with the Police Accountability Department in Roxbury to find a way to remove that questionnaire entirely, either throughout Massachusetts in total or all of America in total. Oftentimes, a mixture of dealing with police as a person with disabilities is always never a really good interaction. So I'm looking forward to working more having accountability and that question being completely removed when interacting with police. Thank you.

Thank You, Cassandra. And Cassandra was that your testimony?

Yes, if that was your testimony. Yes.

Thank you, Cassandra. And we'll talk more about that offline.

Yeah.

Okay, Rachel? You have two minutes.

Okay, so first of all I'd like to thank you Chair Culpepper, Councilor Flynn and Councilor Worrell for calling this hearing I like to say that I have several babies and one of them is the Boston Human Rights Commission. About 10 years ago, I started making calls to Boston City Hall regarding the Human Rights Commission. And then in 2018, I renewed my advocacy and it resulted in The commission being reestablished. And I submitted a blueprint that would explain what its role was, it's raison d'être. There was an educational arm and

I felt like while it wasn't complete, and I understood that over time there would be adjustments Additions that I felt that even so, it was a good start. After I submitted the blueprint, I did not hear anything else from Boston City Hall. Some people talked about feeling disrespected, I have felt incredibly disrespect because I have been trying to get answers I don't want to point fingers. I'm going to follow the lead,

Flynn, but it's left me feeling discouraged because I think that Boston given its history we should have this beautiful wonderful Human Rights Commission. And I wanna kinda give my background really quickly as I wrap up. I trained as a barrister overseas and my background was in human rights. And what led me to focus on human rights is that I'm Jewish, and members of my family escaped horrible conditions and Europe. And so that's kind of influenced everything that I've done. I've human rights work in Austria, in Hungary, in Israel, in the UK. Information to Boston City Hall about relaunching the Human Rights Commission.

I brought that knowledge, as well as my professional formation and the human rights commissions that I had looked at around here. So I think it's rather ironic that as a Human Rights Commission, and we're talking about that, that there hasn't been a lot of respect not only to me who led the advocacy Thank you very much. commissions to kind of pick up the slack, so to speak. There's a place for it and we need to make sure that we're educated about it and that we advocate for it, and that it functions the way it should Thank you for your time.

Rachel, thank you so much and if you could get a copy of the document that you submitted? Sure. If you can get that to us so we could look at it as we begin to draft Amendments to the ordinance.

I would be delighted to. Again, thank you for your time and thank you

First off, I want to thank Councilor Culpepper, Councilor Flynn and Worrell for sounding the alarm on this matter. I took a few notes it wasn't initially I was really here to support Cassandra but kind of felt compelled to step forward and say a few things from some notes that I took. First and foremost, I'm a lifelong resident of Boston by way of the South End. I was born into eminent domain in gentrification came up under the leadership and tutelage of our pioneers and leaders within the community as it relates to advocacy. I have about 35 years of local, state, and federal advocacy primarily with housing and more recently public safety. I also hold multiple roles of advocacy within the community, which are all free to the community. Even to the space where I have self-funded platforms of culture bearing, where I've provided resources and

not to mention referred people to this space, this commission space that seems to be defunct. I was very shocked to learn that this is an empty space. I'm not sure if it's gatekeeping, a gatekeeping space or what the purpose is But some questions that I have are, is funding what's determining the continuity of this space? I see from the conversation that was had with Cambridge, that there's an opportunity to share their blueprint. I'm wondering why the Human Rights Commission is not fundamentally prioritized That's a huge concern, especially since the people become the collateral damage. We have people who are losing their housing, they're losing their lives, theyre losing their dignities and these behaviors that Unjust are just continuing.

I wonder why the subject matter experts have been in these roles and if they didn't sound the alarm, why did they not sound the I'm wondering are these positions nominal and are these people still holding these positions if work is not being done in these rooms? I want to know where the accountability is. And now, I've heard that there are subject matter experts in these roles and within this commission but I also wanna know who are the people in the community because we have advocates and activists like myself yourself and Cassandra who are happy to step into these positions. It's really not about getting a paycheck, it's about making sure that the city of Boston is a safe space. And so That's basically, you know, I appreciate you all for sounding the alarm. I hope that this is more than just a conversation because we all know that if there's no action behind it what's the point of us being here?

I plan to stay involved in the conversation and if you all need to call on myself, I'm happy to step in.

Thank you Heather. One final statement

I wanna say thank you to both, actually all three panels that were here. Wanna say thank-you to Rachel, to Heather, to Cassandra, previous panel as well to the administration official that was here, but I do think Boston should have the best Human Rights Commission in the country. Certainly Cambridge has an excellent Human Rights But I think Boston should have an exceptional Human Rights Commission. We're not there, and I think working with three people right here that want to be engaged and active—and there's other people across the city I think residents want to see us take civil rights and human rights seriously. Whether it's addressing hate crimes or discrimination against people of color, persons with disabilities

People in the LGBTQ community, Boston is a city that we need to ensure when people come to City Hall And file a report. It's taken seriously. Human rights and civil rights are top issues, and I'm going to continue to focus and work on those with my good friend Councilor Culpepper, Councilor Worrell, and all my colleagues here as well. Mr. Chair, thank you very much.

Thank you, Councilor. I want to emphasize that today's hearing is not the end of this conversation. It's really the beginning of the work to rebuild The Human Rights Commission. The Council did secure $200,000 in a fiscal year 27 budget to continue the commission and now we have an opportunity to make sure that when it becomes active again We're not simply recreating what existed before. That we use this moment to build a stronger, more accessible, more effective commission that residents can turn to when they experience discrimination and one that has the tools necessary to meaningfully protect civil and human rights in Boston. We received feedback today, and the testimony that we receive will help us

continue working on the ordinance including this proposed complaint and investigation process an enforcement authority we want to have hearing procedures and that's the adjudicatory component that we were talking about earlier, that doesn't exist right now. And we want to develop a relationship with MCAD and other agencies and resources necessary for this commission to carry out these responsibilities effectively. My goal is to take what we heard today and translate it into a stronger ordinance and a clear path forward for rebuilding this commission. I look forward to continue to work with you and my colleagues, the administration of panelists, civil rights advocate and community members to get this right. And ensure that Boston has a Human Rights Commission capable of serving residents for years to come.

Thank you again to everyone who participated today and this hearing on docket 1, 2, 3, 7 is now adjourned. Thank You