In what one councillor says is a sad legacy, Hamilton city council has put off a plan to start a resource centre for victims of racism.
During the final council meeting before the Oct. 27 election, councillors deferred a plan to spend $130,000 on an anti-racism resource centre.
The centre would have been an 18-month pilot project with a hotline for people experiencing racism to help connect them with resources. Members of the city's anti-racism committee have been pushing for the centre, which the audit, finance and administration committee approved earlier this month.
But Wednesday, councillors voted 10-6 to defer the issue to one of the first meetings of the next term of council. Coun. Sam Merulla of Ward 4 called the move "ill advised."
"It's very sad that this council, particularly on the last night of this term, can be defined by not supporting this."
Councillors who voted for the deferral worried about the $130,000 cost, and whether the centre is duplicating work by other organizations.
"It's easy for us to say," he said. "It's not very easy for those that need (the centre) to say. I look around this table and there aren't too many visible minorities here."
City staff have worked on the project since February. Coun. Terry Whitehead of Ward 8 voted for the deferral because he wants the project to include other minorities experiencing discrimination.
"If there's any way that we can…broaden and not be specific to one issue, I'd be more keen to support it," he said.
Other councillors wanted more information on what the staff member would do. The $130,000 budgeted would pay for a full-time employee to manage the centre and help line, as well as office equipment.
"Racism is a serious issue that we face in this world," said Coun. Scott Duvall of Ward 7, who voted for the deferral. But he wanted to know more about what credentials the hire would have and what exactly the person would do.
Finance head Mike Zegarac told councillors that the centre wouldn't duplicate the work of the Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion.
Coun. Brian McHattie of Ward 1, who sits on the city's anti-racism committee, said these questions had been answered at previous meetings.
Wednesday's vote, he said, will have repercussions.
"I think there is going to be a lot of discussion in the community about this decision tonight," he said.
In 2013, Hamilton Police Service investigated 11 hate crimes, a number that has decreased in the last few years.
But the number of incidents with a hate or bias element – where people utter "odious remarks" against someone's race, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, religion or physical or mental ability – has been growing. Most of them are against the black community.
Who voted to defer the anti-racism centre:
Mayor Bob Bratina, Terry Whitehead, Scott Duvall, Tom Jackson, Maria Pearson, Brenda Johnson, Lloyd Ferguson, Russ Powers, Robert Pasuta, Judi Partridge
Who voted against:
Sam Merulla, Bob Morrow, Jason Farr, Brian McHattie, Chad Collins, Brad Clark
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