Puyallup City Council split on community proposal for race and equity commission
The Puyallup City Council is divided over whether to create a racial equity and diversity commission.
At the Feb. 23 council meeting, some said they felt the commission should be implemented, others disagreed, and a few felt more time was needed to study the issue.
Some residents and members of Puyallup nonprofit, “Two-Way Racial Healing Project,” have been calling in to council meetings regularly to push for the commission, which, among other things, could take reports of nonviolent racial discrimination in the city.
Council member Robin Farris said she has been frustrated with the delay from the council on social issues. Within her first month on the council, she said, she sent her first email about homelessness. Five years later, she said the council is still working on a permanent solution for homelessness.
“To say that this council takes a long time is really the understatement of the year,” she said in the public meeting.
Farris recommended to hire a consultant to help create the commission and didn’t get a response from council.
“If we wait until something happens before we do something, we might as well start saving for litigation because it’s going to happen,” she said. “I think it’s irresponsible to postpone this decision for another day.”
Council member Ned Witting agreed, saying he didn’t understand the danger in a commission. He has proposed language for the council to consider a diversity commission and sent it to city staff. The proposal has yet to be put on the agenda, he told The Puyallup Herald.
“It’s always important to have a starting point, or you are going to be just spinning your wheels,” Witting told The Puyallup Herald on Feb. 25.
In the council meeting, Witting referred to a city proclamation passed in November rejecting racial or cultural harassment, discrimination or intolerance.
“I don’t see (the commission) as being divisive. We put out proclamations, but does that change their lives? I don’t think that proclamations do much,” Witting said in the council meeting. “I think it’s clear there is racism in Puyallup.”
Council member Jim Kastama said the council should be the one dealing with issues of inequity and racism. He said he wants to see unifying events like the Community Unity Day in 1999. The event was organized by school and community leaders after “hundreds of racist, anti-Semitic pamphlets were tossed onto lawns about a week ago, and earlier someone phoned the district, threatening to kill the high school’s 47 black students,” according to coverage by the Seattle Times.
“We need to do things that unify people. If people want to do that, they need to come to us as council members and we will be responsible,” he said during the council meeting. “If there are structural inequities, please let me know, because it’s my duty, my responsibility to do that. But, the buck stops with us. …. Ultimately the democratic process elects us to make some tough decisions.”
He spoke about Puyallup’s history in helping minorities, including when residents brought blankets and food to the Japanese Internment Camp at the Puyallup Fairgrounds and when the city’s founder Ezra Meeker defended Nisqually Chief Leschi after he was charged with the killings of two Washington Territorial Volunteers during a battle.
Council member Cyndy Jacobsen told The Puyallup Herald on Feb. 24 the council is against racism, but the commission proposed by citizens isn’t feasible.
“The thing about the commission and the thing that’s troubling is we keep getting asked to give away authority we don’t have. In other words, we don’t have authority to regulate private speech,” she said. “There’s been no agreement on what the scope of authority would be on this racial equity commission, because again, we cannot delegate authority, which we do not ourselves possess, of looking into the actions of private individuals.”
Deputy Mayor John Palmer and Mayor Julie Door want more time to explore the idea.
“I’m still looking at the commission and I haven’t ruled that in or out, but I do think the focus should be on the community,” he said in the meeting. “I think this will have to come to council in some form in the not too distant future.”
Door said she has been talking with neighboring cities and the city manager about a commission.
“We are working on it, but we all have to figure out what is the best proposal after that research is done,” she said in the council meeting.
Council member Dean Johnson did not speak about the commission in the council meeting, nor did he immediately respond for comment from The Puyallup Herald.
Davida Sharpe-Haygood has spearheaded the commission effort and started “Two-Way Racial Healing Project.” She was touched by citizens’ calls for the commission and experiences shared about discrimination in the city, but upset about some of the council members’ responses.
“I was hurt. I was angry. Did those against the commission not hear the citizens say, ‘This is my personal story,’ and dismiss it as if Puyallup is not like that? They keep saying this is a one-off story, and it’s not,” Sharpe-Haygood said.
She started a Facebook group, now with more than 2,300 members, after the Black Lives Matter protests last year. The calls for a commission began in August and were reignited when a racist statute was found on private property downtown. The figurine has since been taken down.
Sharpe-Haygood said the commission would follow the policy and power of other city commissions and have a broader scale than the statue incident.
“What authority does it take to have a conversation about racism?” she said. “It’s a telltale sign that Puyallup is divided down that line. Some people are saying we are OK how we are, and others are saying, no it’s not. We are going to keep talking and keep fighting to move this conversation forward.”
This story was originally published February 26, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
