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Human Rights, Inclusion and Engagement Commission Minutes October 17, 2018 – Draft Minutes Page 2of 13 47 a formal complaint process. She stated after the letter she understood Mayor Roe took the time 48 to make an explanation to all of the Commissioners but not to her or Ms. Diane Hilden. She 49 thought this was inappropriate. She stated Ms. Hilden went to the newspaper and she was told it 50 was a State issue,so she contacted Senator Marty and Representative Houseman. The 51 newspaper, Senator, and Representative all responded but she has still not heard anything back 52 from the Council. 53 54 Ms. Ramaundt indicated she did not want to take those escalations, but the City has to pay 55 attention to complaints. She noted she had a lot more examples but thought this was an easy 56 thing to solve without going through all of them. She stated the City needs to implement a 57 policy immediately where someone from the City will acknowledge any complaint received 58 about any person who represents the City regardless of how it is heard, in writing within twenty- 59 four to forty-eight hours. This does not mean the issue will be solved and, in some cases, maybe 60 the City will not do anything but at minimum to acknowledge the complaint and tell the person 61 who to contact if the issue is not resolved. Mayor Roe once told her that the City did not 62 acknowledge and email that someone called a formal complaint because it was considered a free 63 speech issue. He never responded to her complaint but could have stated it was a free speech 64 issue and the City would not do anything about it. She stated just acknowledging it in itself de- 65 escalates the situation and sometimes will solve things by having people be heard. 66 67 Ms. Ramaundt stated the next things is to start tracking all complaints about City representatives 68 in a central place. Without a central place for tracking,there is no way to see what is happening 69 in the City and is easy to say there are no problems. She noted memory is short and those in 70 charge do change. She stated from personal experience the City has had multiple complaints 71 about a specific person and the City acted as if it was something new every time the issue came 72 up. She indicated if the complaints were tracked the City Staff would have known and seen there 73 was a pattern. She was asking that by tracking and keeping track of those complaints that are 74 coming in from residents and responding to them to look for patterns and be creative in 75 resolutions. She stated she has heard over and over again that making it easy for residents to 76 complain is going to end up with frivolouscomplaints and targeting somebody. She still held the 77 opinion that if there were multiple complaints about someone, there is a problem that needs to be 78 addressed. 79 80 Ms. Ramaundt thought the Commission can help develop a guide for residents and how to handle 81 complaints.She stated people do not know what to do and do not have a place to go with their 82 complaints. The formal complaint process she was talking about could evolve if it needs to, but 83 she was still optimistic that most problems can be solved when small and manageable, but it 84 cannot be fixed if not acknowledged. 85 86 Chair Beltmann thought this item was something to review to see if it makes sense to put on an 87 upcoming meeting agenda. 88 89 Approve Minutes 90 91 a. September 29, 2018 Human Rights, Inclusion and Engagement Commission