Dayton Demands Real Investment to Combat Racism: Fund the Human Relations Council!

Mayor Nan Whaley, Commissioner Matt Joseph, Commissioner Chris Shaw, Commissioner Jeffrey Mims, Commissioner Darryl Fairchild, and City Manager Shelley Dickstein

Image courtesy Dayton Citizens Coalition

A city’s budget is a city’s values. The City of Dayton needs to fund the Human Relations Council (HRC) to show that they are serious about combating racism!

In June 2020, the City of Dayton declared racism a public health crisis. The Commission emphasized the importance of reshaping its policy agenda and actively engaging in racial justice work to fix racial disparities. The City Commission then heavily cut funding to the HRC in 2020 and is again disproportionately cutting its 2021 budget.

HRC is an agency tasked with ensuring a fair and equitable community for all who live, work, and play in Dayton. The work of the HRC includes civil rights enforcement, community police relations, the Welcome Dayton immigrant support initiative, and minority business assistance. All these programs are critical to creating a fair and just city and to address the public health crisis declared by the City of Dayton.

We demand that the Dayton City Commission stay true to its word and fund the fight for civil rights and racial justice by increasing the HRC’s budget to reflect the City’s commitment to treating racism as a public health crisis, by doing AT LEAST the following:

  • Appropriately fund and staff the HRC to effectively fulfill its duties by filling vacant positions, including the Welcome Dayton Coordinator, the Community Police Relations Coordinator, a Business and Technical Assistance Administrator, and a second Civil Rights Investigator; and providing funding for HRC program implementation.

  • Create a clear, prominent, and empowered role for the HRC in the next steps of police reform, as community members in working groups have repeatedly requested over the past several months.

We demand the City of Dayton immediately use a racial justice and equity budgeting process to ensure a fair, equitable, and anti-racist budget for the City of Dayton. This process should also re-examine the deep funding cuts proposed to Recreation & Youth Services. City leadership cannot and should not use the COVID-19 public health crisis as an excuse to deny our community relief, in any form, from this more foundational crisis.

Please sign the petition below, share it with your network, and submit a public comment to CCOClerk@daytonohio.gov before 5pm on February 23, 2021.

Sponsored by: Dayton - Miami Valley DSA, the Collaboratory/Re-Imagining America, DaytonYBP, Accomplices of the Dayton Area - a SURJ chapter, and a coalition of Dayton residents in support of HRC

Additional Sponsors

To: Mayor Nan Whaley, Commissioner Matt Joseph, Commissioner Chris Shaw, Commissioner Jeffrey Mims, Commissioner Darryl Fairchild, and City Manager Shelley Dickstein
From: [Your Name]

The George Floyd uprisings around the country and the disparate impact of COVID-19 on Black and brown communities has been an opportunity for locally elected leaders to close the gap between the rhetoric of equality and the values reflected in budgets. Here in Dayton last year, the City Commission declared racism a public health crisis (https://www.daytonohio.gov/DocumentCenter/View/9514/Resolution-No-6512-20), repeatedly invoked the phrase “Black Lives Matter,” and demanded that Daytonians hold them accountable for their actions (https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=296857881333699&ref=watch_permalink). Mayor Nan Whaley in her final State of the City address this month (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WrxFOWLK24&t=726s) even said, “we owe it – literally owe it I believe – to our black neighbors to ensure that black families have the same opportunities to live healthy, safe, and prosperous lives as we do. And it is going to take real investment, real hard choices about how we spend our resources to get there.”

It is against this backdrop that the City Commission is set to vote Wednesday on a budget that appears to calcify the deadly status quo that is responsible for the disparate outcomes underpinning the very public health crisis elected officials declared last June. COVID-19 has forced difficult choices on every municipality in this country, but it is precisely during such times when the values reflected in budgets become clearer, and the authenticity of commitments made when the country was riveted by righteous street protests can be verified.

In December 2020, the Commission approved the fourth amendment to the City’s appropriations for 2020 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/12VtyFF7H7kocf0vOuprE7cEpf5Lf-8ZO/view?usp=sharing). This included an 18% ($179,500) cut to the Human Relations Council budget. HRC is an agency tasked with ensuring a fair and equitable community for all who live, work, and play in Dayton. The work of the HRC includes community police relations, Welcome Dayton, civil rights enforcement, and minority business assistance. All of these programs are critical to creating a fair and just city.

The same ordinance also included cuts to Planning and Community Development (15%; $574,700) and Recreation & Youth Services (13%; $745,100), and increases to the City Manager’s Office (13%; $175,000) and the Police Department (3%; $1,571,6000). These actions do NOT reflect the Commission’s commitments to spend their resources to advance racial justice. While city leadership will state that the HRC’s budget cuts are consistent with other departments across the city due to COVID, the budget cuts do not reflect an equitable or racial justice approach to funding. Given the Commission’s priorities, particularly around justice (https://drive.google.com/file/d/17d5C3h-qp_MsV3BPnlV3VPcuwXFS1Aqc/view?usp=sharing), including supporting community police relations, immigration, fair housing and its declaration of racism as a public health crisis, the Commission should fund the agency that is able to and has historically addressed these items.

The proposed 2021 budget includes a reduction to the Human Relations Council. If the budget is approved, the HRC will lose much of its ability to fight for justice and to be a voice for the community.

We demand that the Dayton City Commission stays true to its word and fund the fight for civil rights and racial justice by increasing the HRC’s budget to reflect the City’s commitment to treating racism as a public health crisis, by doing AT LEAST the following:
1. Appropriately fund and staff the HRC to effectively fulfill its duties by filling vacant positions, including the Welcome Dayton Coordinator, the Community Police Relations Coordinator, the Business and Technical Assistance Administrator, and a second Civil Rights Investigator; and providing funding for HRC program implementation.
2. Create a clear, prominent, and empowered role for the HRC in the next steps of police reform, as community members in working groups have repeatedly requested over the past several months.

We demand the City of Dayton immediately use a racial justice and equity budgeting process to ensure a fair, equitable, and anti-racist budget for the City of Dayton. City leadership cannot and should not use the COVID-19 public health crisis as an excuse to deny our community relief, in any form, from this more foundational crisis!