Without An Explanation, SEWRPC Website Says It Complies With US Civil Rights Law

Without explanation, without fanfare, the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission has posted on one of its web pages a link to an undated policy statement of compliance with US Civil Rights Law.

Here is the document.

Was it added to the agency's web pages because The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin recently filed a complaint against SEWRPC regarding some of its programs and structures?

Good guess. Who knows? The link just appeared last week.

If SEWRPC really believed it was in compliance with US Civil Rights statutes, instead of posting a boiler-plate statement so outdated that the 'how-to-reach-us' closing doesn't even have an email address - - it would openly address and acknowledge the complaint, and knock it down with argument, data and documentation.

But SEWRPC is not calling attention to the document.

It's not on SEWRPC's home page.

It's at the bottom of the "About the Commission" page, so its disclosure is on the record, but minimized. As if just stating it and linking the words "Notice to Public: Title VI Compliance" to an electronically-stored and photocopied single piece of pdf'ed paper somehow establishes its Civil Rights compliance as a fact.

And by the way, on that About the Commission page, you will still not find biographies of the 21 commissioners.

Updates:

SEWRPC has released a statement in response to the complaint.

Here is a link to the statement. Phil Evenson, SEWRPC Executive Director, said in an email that the date of the statement is August 29th.

At the SEWRPC quarterly meeting Wednesday afternoon in Kenosha, Evenson gave a presentation to the commission about the complaint, reiterating his belief, as outlined in the statement, that the complaint is misdirected, and without merit.

Evenson said SEWRPC shared the same "frustration" about the lack of progress on regional transit improvements expressed in the complaint.

He also was annoyed that filers of the complaint had not given him "the common courtesy" of delivering a copy before being a reporter gave him one, which Evenson said amounted to being "ambushed."