At a Largo City Commission work session Tuesday, commissioners Pat Burke, Pat Gerard and Gay Gentry said they wanted the commission, and perhaps even the entire community, to begin another conversation about how to encourage diversity and end discrimination in Largo.
"We started talking about this before, then we had some people come out and say some ugly things and we ran from it," Gerard said.
"I would like to see how our community could be more welcoming to all," Burke said. "We need to have a discussion involving our whole community."
The three commissioners - who favored a controversial citywide human rights ordinance the commission turned down 4-3 last August - chose their words carefully and kept their tone light. The tempest that erupted last year had convinced them to use care in raising the issue of diversity again.
But the reaction of their four commission colleagues Tuesday was immediately negative. It was clear that the four were not happy that the issue of diversity had been plopped onto their plates again. They immediately sought to scrape it off onto someone else's dishes.
Commissioner Charlie Harper pointed out that no other cities had tackled the issue since then. He lashed out at the St. Petersburg Times for criticizing Largo officials who did not support a human rights ordinance last year. He said a human rights ordinance "should have been taken up at the county level." He said a federal or state law ought to take care of Largo's problems with discrimination.
Mayor Bob Jackson wanted to know why the business community isn't fixing the discrimination problem. He, too, criticized the Times, which he said had to be "chided" by the NAACP to put an African-American on its board of directors.
Commissioner Harriet Crozier just threw up her hands. And Commissioner Jean Halvorsen, in almost incomprehensible and rambling remarks, seemed to say that the community had already taken care of diversity. "Diversity is a pat word ... How do you know it isn't out there?" she asked. (We know. Largo is more than 92 percent white.)
Those four commissioners may try to deny that Largo has a problem, but it is there for all to see. A 2002 fair housing study documented that black testers who sought to rent an apartment in Largo experienced treatment different from white testers a whopping 89 percent of the time, and other minorities, including Hispanics and the handicapped, encountered it too. In addition, the city government has been sued by minority employees who faced racial harassment at work, has made headlines when city employees were caught making racist or sexist remarks, and has been forced to hold repeated sessions of sensitivity training for employees. In a widely publicized incident at a Largo school this year, a black student was harassed by whites and a noose was put around his neck. African-Americans have said they don't feel comfortable in Largo.
To deny these problems is to appear out of touch with reality.
Commissioners also may wish they could dump their city's problems on some other government or agency, but they bear the responsibility. Their scurrying to avoid that responsibility appears even more unseemly now that all city employees have been required to confront the problem in city offices and take responsibility for fixing it.
City Human Resources Director Susan Sinz was sitting at the table with commissioners Tuesday night, proffering three ideas for ways they could take up the subject of diversity again: Invite the Florida Commission on Human Relations to discuss with commissioners ideas for enhancing diversity in Largo; create a citizens advisory board to educate the community on the value of diversity; or create a committee of residents and business people to recommend ways the city could attract a more diverse population.
Sinz emphasized that the goal of her suggestions was not to make another run at a human rights ordinance. The four commissioners' defeat of such an ordinance last year signaled to the community that there would be no city-sponsored protections against discrimination in housing, employment and accommodations. The human consequences of that decision seem to have escaped them.
On Tuesday night, continued pleas from Burke, Gerard and Gentry to at least begin talking about diversity and discrimination finally led their colleagues to take a small step in that direction. The commission will invite officials from the Florida Commission on Human Relations to talk with them about what that group could do to help the city. Harper suggested the group might one day lead a town hall meeting on diversity and human rights at the Largo Cultural Center. Harper and Jackson also hinted that they might be persuaded to tackle the problem of discrimination in housing, since that has been documented.
A small step is better than none at all. However, with problems the size of Largo's, what is needed is all seven commissioners saying with one voice that discrimination against any person is wrong and will not be tolerated any longer.
