JANUARY 31, 2006

ATTENDANCE: Rev. Jeffrey Ingraham, Chair; Cesar Ramirez; Rahoul Dupovil; Bernardine Tatum.

STAFF: Margaret Suib, Fair Housing Officer

OTHERS:

CALL TO ORDER

After waiting several minutes to see if there would be a quorum, Rev. Ingraham called the meeting to order at 7:11 p.m.

APPROVAL OF OCTOBER 17 AND NOVEM BER 21, 2005 MINUTES

Corrections to the minutes of October 17, 2005 are as follows:

Page 2, 2nd paragraph, 1st sentence: after the word “statement” add “made by Ms. Margaret Suib”
Page 3, 2nd paragraph, 1st sentence: change “Commission” to “Commission’s.”
Page 3, 2nd paragraph, 2nd sentence: change to read, “He suggested that perhaps this was her way of…”
Page 3, 2nd paragraph, 3rd sentence: change “the people” to “Commissioners.”
Page 3, 5th paragraph, 4th sentence: change to read, “Mr. Dupervil stated that he believed there has been some misunderstanding as far as Margaret’s position with the NAACP and the City of Norwalk.”
Page 3, 5th paragraph, 5th sentence: change to read, “He felt that this issue needed to be addressed exactly to know what has to be done.”

** MR. DUPERVIL MOVED TO ACCEPT THE MINUTES OF THE OCTOBER 17, 2005 MEETING AS AMENDED.
** REV. INGRAHAM SECONDED.
** MOTION PASSED WITH TWO ABSTENTIONS (MS. TATEM, OFFICER RAMIREZ).

Corrections to the minutes of November 21, 2005 are as follows:

Page 1, Attendance: change spelling of “Raoul” to “Rahoul.”

** MS. TATEM MOVED TO ACCEPT THE MINUTES OF THE NOVEMBER 21, 2005 MEETING AS AMENDED.
** MR. DUPERVIL SECONDED.
** MOTION PASSED WITH ONE ABSTENTION (OFFICER RAMIREZ).

COMMISSION COMMENTS ON FAIR HOUSING OFFICER’S ANNUAL REPORT, DATED OCTOBER 17, 2005

Rev. Ingraham proposed discussing the report now with only four Commissioners, or discussion
could be tabled to the next meeting when more Commissioners will be present. Officer Ramirez asked if there was a deadline for the Commissioners’ response to the report. Ms. Suib said there was not. She stated the timeline was that she presents the report to the Commission; the Commission reviews it and then sends it on to Redevelopment. Ms. Suib said that previously she simply wrote the report and presented it to the Commissioners, and that the Commissioners’ response to it this year was a new procedural change. There was some further discussion between the Commissioners and Ms. Suib regarding the report before Ms. Tatem proposed tabling the discussion of the report to the March meeting.

** OFFICER RAMIREZ MOVED TO TABLE DISCUSSION OF THE FAIR HOUSING OFFICER’S REPORT TO THE NEXT COMMISSION MEETING.
** MR. DUPERVIL SECONDED.
** MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.

Ms. Tatem said this would give the Commission time to continue to review the report and make their comments and changes. Mr. Dupervil stated that the Commission should remember that this is the Fair Housing Officer’s report and not the Commission’s report, and that any response the Commission has regarding the report should be a separate document, and that Ms. Suib’s report should not be changed in any way as it is her report. Rev. Ingraham asked the Commissioners to brush up on the document and be ready to discuss it in two weeks at the next meeting.

FAIR HOUSING OFFICER’S REPORT BACK TO FHAC ON FHAC’S PROPOSED WORK PLAN FOR FY 2005-2006

Rev. Ingraham stated that the FHAC has drafted the report of a work plan for Ms. Suib and has submitted it for her comments. He asked if Ms. Suib would like to comment now or wait until the next meeting. Ms. Suib said she could wait until the next meeting but did have a brief comment to make at this time.

Ms. Suib said the Commission’s report had five elements, and basically asked her to tell them what is do-able, how she can do the things that are possible to do, and how to measure success. The first item was affordable housing. Ms. Suib said she felt she would continue to be involved with affordable housing and new affordable housing development in 2005-2006. She pointed out that it was impossible to measure this as it was mainly out of her control as to whether the City mandates affordable housing zoning changes or not.
Ms. Suib said that as far as the testing program was concerned, it was not complaint-driven, as no one has complained so far this year. She felt this was not a do-able item because of lack of staff and budget at this time. In response to questioning from Ms. Tatem and Officer Ramirez, Ms. Suib explained how the testing program worked. She indicated that, as only one person, she was unable to run a full time testing program because of other demands on her time as Fair Housing Officer, and also because of a limited budget.

Ms. Suib said that outreach was a do-able item and explained that much of this is done by presentations and public speaking; writing news articles; and doing media interviews, as well as distributing flyers. It also includes landlord/tenant training sessions; working with realtors; and working at the State level with various agencies and departments. Ms. Suib said that almost all of her daily work includes outreach in one form or another. Rev. Ingraham asked about the monthly newspaper column Ms. Suib had been writing. Ms. Suib said that she hadn’t done it for a while as the editor hasn’t been interested, but will follow up on it to see if it can be started up again.

Ms. Suib said she had done a lending study in 1998, which had good results. Banks came in and asked her to tell them how they could do better. She completed a second study in 2000 to see what had been approved since the first study. Ms. Suib said the Commission then told her not to do any further lending studies, and that Laurie went to Redevelopment and asked Redevelopment to ask Ms. Suib not to do further lending studies. Mr. Dupervil asked why the studies had been stopped. Ms. Suib replied that apparently some of the banks did not approve of the findings becoming public knowledge. Rev. Ingraham asked how many banks were involved in the studies. Ms. Suib said that eight banks were involved, and only those that had a Norwalk branch.

After some further questioning from the Commissioners, it was determined that Ms. Suib should respond with her comments at the next meeting.

DISCUSSION OF COMMISSION’S FY 2005-2006 WORK PLAN

This item was tabled to the next meeting.

No action was taken on this item.

OLD BUSINESS

There was no old business.

NEW BUSINESS

There was no new business.

ADJOURNMENT

** OFFICER RAMIREZ MOTIONED TO ADJOURN.
** MR. DUPERVIL SECONDED.
** MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:35 p.m.