A recent post from Rick Yencer covered a public meeting from the Muncie Human Rights Commission (MHRC) held yesterday, June 10th. It can be read at Delaware County Community Awareness.

I can only speak to what happened at the public meeting, not the executive session held at 4pm. To act like I’d be willing to lose my role on a city board just to say what happened at our first executive session is stupid.

I was recently appointed by our city council on June 1st to serve on the MHRC, and Mayor Dan Ridenour recently appointed Christiana Mann and Pam Ivy as well. The meeting was being planned a week in advance, however I was not made aware that an executive session would be followed by a public meeting, until I received an email the day before from Michele Clark.

I voted to abstain. Considering the timing, I thought it was highly inappropriate for the commission, which has had high turnover and reorganization in the past year along with three brand new commissioners just recently added, to be coerced to vote on such a matter that day before our upcoming monthly meeting.

This was my first time formally meeting the commission, and in terms of transparency to the public only the bare minimum was done. Two legal notices were provided at the building, for both the executive and public meetings, and doors to the building were unlocked for the public meeting. Rick Yencer is correct that there was no agenda provided.

Our next meeting is this Monday, June 15th at 4:30 at Kennedy Library. But yesterday was my introduction to the Muncie Human Rights Commission. And, it’s ludicrous for the commission to be perceived in this kind of light. The commission has always been challenged on whether it can merely be an advisory agency that can be scrapped at a moments notice, or have the real authority of a respected city commission, and I’m in the interest of keeping the Human Rights Commission functioning and a point of pride for the Muncie community.