Aug.
13, 2007-- The
Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission's
Environmental Justice Task Force kicked off last week
with presentations by SEWRPC and by ACLU attorney Karyn
Rotker.
SEWRPC's
presentation is here.
The main parts of Rotker's presentation -- which challenged
SEWRPC to improve its consideration of environmental
justice issues, are below.
The
videos run about three to four minutes each, and follow
the outline of Rotker's discussion. Her major points
are summarized below each video clip.
Be
aware: the video works best with Internet Explorer.
Participation
SEWRPC
must to improve participation of low-income persons,
communities of color and persons with disabilities.
This needs to occur both at the grass roots level, but
also on advisory committees which, as SEWRPC confirmed
in its presentation, are the core decision-making bodies.
most of them have little or no representation from these
communities. SEWRPC's Water Supply Study Committee,
for example, has 33 members, 32 of whom are white, while
the Telecommunications Committee is 100% white. If SEWRPC
lacks multiple perspectives on advisory committees,
there is research/info/questions that are just not addressed.
Information
SEWRPC
must do a better job of collecting data and analyzing
how that relates to these communities. Although SEWRPC
in its presentation claimed it did so, Rotker told explained
to the EJTF that those who have been urging SEWRPC to
improve its analyses dispute the adequacy of much of
the agency's work. For example, SEWRPC stated that even
though many low-income and minority people don't have
cars, most do drive. Rotker noted that SEWRPC refused
to evaluate available data analyzing where
those people live and work. If they are driving from
the near north side or the near south side of Milwaukee
to work downtown, for example, then spending billions
of dollars on bigger interstate highways probably won't
be a significant benefit them.
Effects
It's
not enough to have an inclusive process. The EJTF must
look at ways to ensure that plans and programs to benefit
underrepresented communities actually occur. (For example
- if SEWRPC plans for transit and says that will benefit
underrepresented communities, but the transit proposals
are never implemented, then those communities are not
receiving a fair share of benefits. The same logic holds
for Smart Growth, land use and housing planning .
