Milwaukee Rising

The NAACP’s affirmative action complaint against the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission beautifully captures SEWRPC’s dismissive attitude toward public outreach and public accountability. The complaint was filed last week with the Office of Federal Contract Compliance.

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.