We the undersigned Ulster County Human-Rights Commission commissioners are writing this letter to express our sincere disappointment with the Metzger administration’s handling of our commission.
It will come as a surprise to many readers that our county has a human-rights commission, because this administration is keeping it a hidden secret and refuses to publicize or promote our work. That work is protecting those who are discriminated against for their race, religion, disability, sexual and gender preference whether in housing, the workplace, or wherever it occurs.
Seems like a good thing, no? But the county leadership is working hard to suppress this work and prevent us from helping those who have been wronged, first by firing our leader Tyrone Wilson over some very trivial comments made long ago that caused no problem at the time but were rolled out to put a fig leaf over a political assassination.
Esi Lewis, who has no qualifications nor appetite for human-rights work, has been placed over us as “acting commissioner,” and her tenure to date has been marred by cancelled meetings, failure to pursue complaints in a timely manner, and misleading our commissioners about details on these matters.
Ms. Metzger has now arbitrarily removed our chair, Carl Brown, without cause and replaced him with a much more innocuous selection, in violation of our bylaws using a legal loophole.
In addition, we have complaints from county employees about racial discrimination in their workplace that are not being properly handled in accordance with our process over the past few years, and it has become clear that Ms. Lewis cannot be trusted to handle cases involving the county since her allegiance is to the exec [Metzger] and not to the employees being harassed.
They are essentially being victimized further for having come forward, which is borderline illegal as well as unconscionable.
The commission is being padded with those more loyal to Jen Metzger than to any sense of helping marginalized individuals who have experienced discrimination. Our commission should be a beacon of hope to those people, but instead it has been politicized and rendered ineffective. What should have been something we and this administration could be proud of it has instead become an embarrassment to us all.
In light of the above we are tendering our resignation from the Ulster County Human Rights Commission and notifying the community to be very careful of coming forward, lest they be retaliated against.
We call on county executive Metzger to remove Esi Lewis from a position she is ill-equipped to hold, and to cease the politicization of the commission, which should be allowed to do its work unburdened by politics and outside control.
The people of Ulster County deserve better.
Bruce Ginsberg
Former commissioner
Martin Dunkley
Former commissioner
Carl Brown
Former chair, Ulster County Human Rights Commission
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