Though a dedicated core of the thirteen-member Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission's Environmental Justice Task Force plugs away on vital water, housing and other socio-economic issues, meeting minutes show that the Task Force has not mustered a quorum since its January meeting, records show.
At last week's meeting there was an interesting discussion and document distribution about housing, but only a handful of members were there - - making it the third in a row, along with the March and May meetings where less than a majority of members were present.
The agency's management has got to reach out to the groups and municipalities who have supplied members and urge them to make sure their members are attending, or commit to replacing those who have not been attending with new people who can and will.
Citizen participation was a crucial component of an effort to force SEWRPC to create and deal with the EJTF..
Posts on this blog about it date to 2007, with more that followed, and continued, because these issues are intractable and the EJTF is about the only open public policy body in the region where social justice is regularly discussed.
The work of the EJTF can be thankless, and is no doubt time-consuming for citizen-volunteers, but the agency has got to step up and make sure this group can meet the community's needs and expectations.
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