I was somewhat surprised at many of your comments. We who have diligently served on the Civil Rights Commission have never had a conversation with you. The people at the State have their views and opinions, which are mostly garnered by the State Human rights Act. I tried for months as the Chair of the Commission to communicate on a level outside the human rights act with the people at the State, but their answers were dictated in law. 
I expect people to live up to their word, as I live up to mine. The Mayor committed to not cutting the CIU if we proved this to be a bad decision. We proved it in writing. My question to you in this regard: Is the Mayor not a person of his word
If he is our elected leader, how could you with a clear conscious request to be done what he said he would not do?
If you are concerned about the backlog and poor performance in the department, cutting it will not fix it. Requiring investigators to answer telephones instead of investigate cases because of prior cuts, and the conflict between proper customer service in a people oriented business is a question the "leadership has to look at."
The Department has failed miserably for many years as verified by several reports if you read the ordinance and City charter. With five Directors and seven liaisons, in five years, this is a recipe for disaster. It is no surprise to me that the disaster is before us now.
Many City Council members have served for at least 8 years. The City Council and Mayor that are our elected leaders have failed in holding this department accountable for results to the people of this City. The Director's have all failed. Not one of them incorporated the requirements in the laws governing this Department to serve the people of Minneapolis. They have all served the "Mayor"
If the Mayor wanted the backlog removed, he would have demanded resources be allocated and accountability from his appointee to get the job done.
The commission diligently reported since October of 2007 that the Director was not qualified to do this work. The Mayor sluffed us off as "Michael Jordan was his man to lead the Department." The HEE committee did nothing tangible to get the Director to improve, no matter how much we requested and documented problems.
There is nothing citizens can do to get appointed unqualified people to be removed. If appointed volunteers, that are advisors to the city leadership and representatives of the general public cannot get the message to the leadership that changes should be made for better service to the people of the city, then the people are doomed.
In this case it seems the city leadership made a backdoor attempt to serve its needs and not the people. The people would be left out of "One Minneapolis," while the leadership flourished under budget cuts.
I received an e-mail from one of your peers stating he got choked up when advising people to file Civil Rights complaints with the city because of the backlog. It is clear he does not know how the CIU works. People who are going to set policy for a department that they have no idea how it works concerns me deeply. I hope the policy committee will learn about the department before they doom it to failure with policies that will not work.
I would think that the qualified candidate paid to lead the department should set the policy and expectations for the operation of said department. I surely would not pay someone $100,000.00 or more per year who could not set policy and expectations and run a successful department for everyone, not just the policy makers and bean counters.
Civil Rights is about people, not simply dollars. How much is your Civil Rights worth? How much is your child's Civil Rights worth? How far and to what length do you think your child should have to go to have their Civil Rights protected if they were violated, especially by our Police Department?
Respectfully,
Kenneth Brown
Former Citizen volunteer for the City of Minneapolis
