Laserfiche WebLink
<br />REPORT TO THE ROSEVILLE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION <br />From Jill Bergquist <br />October 5, 2000 <br /> <br />Due to outside circumstances, I am sorry that I am unable to attend the <br />October 10,2000 meeting of the Roseville Human Rights Commission. <br /> <br />In September, 2000, the League of Minnesota Human Rights Commissions <br />(LMHRC), of which the Roseville Commission is a member, held its annual <br />conference, which was a big success. The primary organizer of the <br />conference was our own Thelma MacKenzie, who is President of the <br />League. Issac Afwerke, Vice President of the League, also participated a <br />great deal in the planning of the conference. Jill was the Master of <br />Ceremonies, and Susan Oliphant was one of the workshop presenters. So, as <br />you can see, Roseville was well represented at the annual conference, as <br />usual. I attended Susan's workshop, and I can tell you it was excellent. <br /> <br />The keynote speaker for the conference was Christopher Bell, Esq., and <br />Mark Dayton was our luncheon speaker. Rep. Betty McCollum joined us <br />for lunch. <br /> <br />Turnout for the conference was not as good as expected, due to some no- <br />shows. At future League meetings we will be discussing ways to get the <br />word out sooner and better about League events. <br /> <br />Also in September, Mort Ryweck, of the LMHRC, led two training sessions <br />for our Roseville Police Department on hate crimes response training. The <br />sessions were extremely informative. I represented the Roseville <br />Commission at the first training session, and Susan Oliphant represented us <br />at the second session. She can tell you more about it. We especially wanted <br />to remind the police to inform us when there is anything even resembling a <br />bias or hate crime in the city, such as vandalism, or even events that are not <br />criminal in nature, such as offensive leafleting. We also wanted to <br />emphasize to the police that they should report as hate crimes any incident in <br />which the victim believes a protected characteristic played a role, even if the <br />police do not agree with the victim's assessment. <br /> <br />The Human Rights Essay Contest has been sent out to Roseville area <br />schools. I have a list of teachers and principals we sent them too, and I am <br />