Members of Arlington’s reconstituted Human Rights Commission are seeking to clarify what they can do when county staff’s attempts to mediate disputes fail.
It’s a rare circumstance, to be sure. Most formal complaints to the county’s human rights office are settled, dismissed or withdrawn at the staff level, and over the past year, county officials said there was just a single case where the complaint was found justified but no settlement could be reached.
Until now, such an impasse typically has meant the case languishes without further county action. But at the Sept. 11 Human Rights Commission meeting, some commissioners wanted a process designed to avoid that.
“If it gets to that point — I get it, not very often — but if it does, [I want] procedures in place to actually figure out what we can do to remedy the situation,” said Jimmy McBirney, the commission’s chair.
“We really, at a bare minimum, should know what those next steps are,” commission member Maggie Davis said.
Davis, who homed in on the issue with a series of questions to staff, said that, as of now, there seems to be no incentive for those accused of violating the county’s human-rights ordinance to settle cases.
“I’m troubled by there not being enforcement if you don’t reach a conciliation agreement,” she said. “Why would people conciliate if there’s no accountability for them not to?”
Commissioner Allan Gajadhar said he has “the exact same concern,” although he acknowledged that the human rights statute does lay out some general guidelines for enforcing findings.
In order to turn those generalities into specifics, commission members would need to make decisions on how to move forward, said Gurjit Chima, the county government’s assistant county manager in charge of human rights.
“That would be something the commission would have to discuss, what those other steps would be, if that’s something you’d want to do,” she said, underscoring that it is extremely rare to wrap up an investigation without a final disposition.
Davis said the actual number was not important to the discussion, as every case should be addressed to the fullest extent possible.
“I feel like there’s a duty to do more,” Davis said. Currently, “there’s no enforcement,” she said.
County staff did not divulge the details of the single complaint where no conciliatory action was achieved. Of the 34 investigations currently ongoing in Arlington, a total of 22 involve employment, 11 housing and one public accommodation.
Under the county’s revamped human rights ordinance, adopted by County Board members last year, the commission for the most part would need Board authorization before taking major steps to enforce staff decisions.
For the commission to try to enforce remedies, “you’d have to get approval from the County Board and advice from the county attorney,” Chima said.
The commission does not have the power to refer cases to the commonwealth’s attorney, office of state attorney general or federal agencies, she said.
The new ordinance was adopted after Board members fired the existing Human Rights Commission in mid-2024 after a series of skirmishes between the two entities. Members of the new Commission were appointed earlier this year and have held three meetings to date.
