More here.

And please participate Oct. 22. Southeastern Wisconsin residents deserve better than this. Details below

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Make Your Voice Heard on Decisions Impacting Quality of Life, Mass Transit, Asthma Rates, Affordable Housing, Job Growth, and More

ACTION ALERT: On October 22, 2008, come join a coalition of individuals and groups to challenge the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission’s (SEWRPC) recertification as the recognized Metropolitan Planning Organization for the region.

“We said this four years ago, and unfortunately we have to say it again – SEWRPC hasn’t lived up to either its ethical or legal obligations to represent the interests of all residents of our community,” said Karyn Rotker, Senior Staff Attorney for ACLU-WI.

Every four years, the federal government has to certify that a Metropolitan Planning Organization is following federal laws and requirements, including civil rights and environmental justice requirements. SEWRPC is up for recertification this year. The U.S. Department of Transportation will have a public meeting where YOU can provide written or spoken comments.

As the region’s Metropolitan Planning Organization, SEWRPC makes recommendations about transportation planning. These transportation projects impact priorities for government funding, how healthy our air is, where housing is developed, job growth, the availability of mass transit, the supply of and potential movement of water outside the Great Lakes Basin, and much more. The agency, however, often has ignored the concerns of minority and low-income residents of Milwaukee. For example, SEWRPC has yet to conduct a regional housing study – something it promised in 2005 to do. It has denied requests from groups representing low income and minority communities to participate on advisory task forces. It rejected the requests of its own Environmental Justice Task Force to seek a diverse and inclusive pool of candidates to fill its Executive Director and Assistant Director positions.

WHAT: Public Meeting on SEWRPC’s Certification as Metro Planning Organization
WHERE: Downtown Transit Center, Harbor Lights Room, 909 E. Michigan Ave. Milwaukee
WHEN: October 22, 2008 5 p.m. – 7 p.m.

SEWRPC has not taken seriously for years its responsibility to hire a diverse work force. Its affirmative action plan apparently is a cut-and-paste job that repeats itself year in and year out with little change except the date. It is unclear whether SEWRPC officials actually read the document — it seems doubtful. Executive Director Phil Evenson even has recently disowned a statement that has been in the plan for years. He simply does not believe, he said, that a lack of transit to SEWRPC headquarters in Pewaukee may hamper minority hiring. That sentence likely will be stricken from the affirmative action report.

It’s not only in hiring that SEWRPC wants to be a power unto itself. At a July meeting of the SEWRPC Environmental Justice Task Force, Evenson objected to a request by Task Force member Joette Heckenbach that an outside agency be hired to assist it in performing socio-economic impact studies as part of its major plans. That proposal likely will be discussed again in October.

Those two issues — SEWRPC’s refusal to act in good faith in affirmative action matters and its reluctance to allow outside voices other than its hand-picked, often no-bid consultants, are two branches of the same problematic tree. SEWRPC has run as a kingdom unto itself for years, and would like to continue to do so.

This is the first in a series of posts combining video clips of the discussion about socio-economic impact analyses and excerpts from the affirmative action complaint. They are two different issues, but the theme is amazingly consistent.

First, the meeting clip.

Excerpts from the complaint, submitted by ACLU attorney Karyn Rotker and ACLU volunteer attorney Rebecca Salawdeh.

SEWRPC has been subject to affirmative action regulations since at least 1975….

12. Upon information and belief, SEWRPC’s Affirmative Action Plan and Job Group Analysis for July 1, 2008-June 30, 2009 has not been completed.

13. The AA Plan identifies, as a “Problem Area,” its lack of minority professional staff.

14. In June 1996, SEWRPC had only one professional staff person of color out of 41 professional staff members, and no professional African-American or Latino staff.

15. In June 2007, more than a decade later, SEWRPC still had only one professional staff person of color out of 42 professional staff members, and no professional African-American or Latino staff.

16. The single person of color on SEWRPC’s professional staff in June 2007 was the same individual who had been there since June 2001, if not earlier.

17. As of June 2007, SEWRPC had no senior professionals, principal professionals, or officials or managers of color on its professional staff.

18. As of June 2007, SEWRPC had no senior or supervisory staff of color on its technical staff.

19. SEWRPC’s AA Plan asserts that increasing diversity among its professional staff is difficult because it anticipates hiring only for one or two professional positions per year over the subsequent several years.

20. SEWRPC’s AA Plan also asserts that increasing diversity among its professional staff is difficult because many of its professional staff remain at SEWRPC for many years.

21. The AA Plan’s “Action-Oriented Program” to “increase Nonwhite Employment on the Commission Staff,” includes, inter alia,
a. Expanding the use of minority media to advertise job openings;
b. Expanding the minority groups and neighborhood organizations that are notified of job openings; and
c. Establishing working relationships with minority groups and neighborhood organizations through which SEWRPC may identify qualified minority candidates for employment, and through which the groups could refer qualified minority candidates to SEWRPC for consideration in the pool of candidates when staff
positions become open.

22. SEWRPC’s Action Oriented Program said that these affirmative actions would be taken with respect to “job openings.”

23. SEWRPC’s Action Oriented Program did not state that SEWRPC would take affirmative action only for entry level jobs or in any way indicate that SEWRPC would prefer to promote from within.

Jim Rowen has the details here.