Council Plans To Ask For Better Race Relations City Hall Will ‘Set Standard’ For Equity, Geraghty Says

They say charity starts at home.

In Spokane, racial equity starts at City Hall.

Council members tonight plan to adopt a resolution that calls for improved race relations throughout the city. For the effort to be successful, city leaders say, the work must begin inside the government building at Spokane Falls Boulevard and Post.

“The city is going to develop a plan of action, be an example for other organizations to follow,” said Mayor Jack Geraghty. “We must set the standard. The goal must be to eliminate racism.”

“We want to begin to talk about racism more openly, more directly. We know our problems can’t be solved without action and commitment from everyone,” said Cherie Berthon, the city’s human rights specialist. “The City Council passing this … is symbolic of the community embracing it.”

A renewed push for racial equity started last year after several black students at Gonzaga University received hate letters or suffered vandalism over a 14-month period.

Geraghty and former Gonzaga University President Bernard Coughlin formed a race relations task force and held a series of meetings where community leaders discussed strategies to counterattack racism.

The task force recently sent out letters to 23,000 groups and businesses, asking them to make a commitment to racial equity.

After the resolution is adopted, city officials will look at ways to improve the atmosphere for minorities inside City Hall.

Those steps may include such things as diversity training and changed hiring practices “to ensure a level playing field,” Geraghty said.

Even people who are convinced they treat everyone equally can learn ways to improve race relations, Berthon said.

“If we say we’re not racist, that’s not enough for us,” she said. “I think everybody has a role to play in this, even if they think that they’ve arrived.”

Also tonight, the council will:

Discuss two parallel contracts, one that agrees to lease a Xerox laser printer for a year, another that pays for the printer’s maintenance for a year.

Council members were surprised last week to learn the maintenance contract at $43,240 was nearly $20,000 more than the $25,477 lease.

“Is this a misprint or are the maintenance costs higher?” asked Councilwoman Phyllis Holmes.

Tom Tate, acting director of city management information services, said maintaining the high-tech machinery is “very expensive. They have a lot of moving parts that grunt and grind and break.”

This particular printer will copy 70,000 utility bills and 250,000 other plain forms each month.

Tate said when the old printer died, he chose to lease a new printer so the city could keep up with ever-advancing technology.

Consider a $36,940 contract with Northwest Fence Company Inc. to fix the driving range fence at Esmeralda Golf Course destroyed during last November’s ice storm. Federal disaster dollars will cover at least 75 percent of the costs.

The council’s briefing starts at 3:30 p.m. in the lower-level briefing room of City Hall, 808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. The meeting begins at 6 p.m.

, DataTimes