Time to Disband the Human Rights Commission?

Another local government commission/board/whatever that has spent itself into bankruptcy or larceny or both is the Lexington Human Rights Commission, joining the boards (sometime thieves) of Bluegrass Airport, the city-league, county-cabal and local library. One wonders where, if, or when this mismanagement/embezzlement/whatever will be stopped. As in all the other cases, the people responsible for the HRC don’t have a clue as to how all the funds disappeared, even those involving personnel insurance payments to the city government.

Anyone who believes that is invited to buy the Centrepointe land for 99 cents. Or...even worse, that may actually be the truth, i.e, that the folks who are supposed to run things either can’t or won’t. The HRC director who was just fired can’t even draw his last check, but the public is led to believe that he doesn’t know why he can’t draw that check. Where did the money go? If he doesn’t know, who does? If he doesn’t know, who in city government should know? After all, much of the HRC operating-cash is paid by Lexington taxpayers, whose representatives should have a working knowledge of the agencies they supposedly govern. This is ridiculous.

One has only to remember the “Ron Berry Affair” of the late 90s to understand how city government can be totally a lost ball in the tall weeds. This guy was engaging in lewd acts with minors for years but nobody in government knew anything about it, or at least did not own up to knowing anything about it. The boards of the other agencies mentioned above just didn’t know what was going on...their members said...while the head apparatchiks they were supposed to be watching/governing were stealing the taxpayers blind. This is disgusting.

One supposes that State Auditor Luallen will be called upon to send her people in to decide who did what, when, where and why, though when compared to the other rip-offs the HRC mess is chickenfeed, only a $50,000 deficit presently, with nothing to make payroll and debts totaling more than $71,000.

Perhaps this would be a good time to do away with the HRC altogether, thus saving a barrel of money and getting rid of an agency no one will watch anyway. The Civil Rights legislation, in the main, was passed some 45 years ago, complete with entitlements, quotas and all the rest. Surely, complaints can be made directly to the Lexington-Fayette government, with perhaps one – and only one – employee designated to look after and resolve any problems. That would be a lot cheaper and maybe – just maybe – there would be a level of accountability...though one shouldn’t bet the farm on that.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark