Hair Balls on METRO's "civil rights trainwreck" (updated)
The Houston Press Hairballs blog takes a break momentarily from amateurish, incomprehensible rambling to post actual work from a professional journalist* related to METRO. Here's a snippet from Paul Knight, commenting on METRO's adventures with civil-rights laws:
A couple months back, we wrote about Metro receiving notification from the Federal Transit Administration, saying Metro had violated federal civil rights laws, but we hadn't seen a draft of the preliminary report. Now we have, and, apparently, Metro hasn't been too concerned with the federal laws.
According to the report, "the general consensus among the staff was that there was little to no awareness of METRO's Title VI Program," a program designed to ensure that Metro doesn't discriminate based on race, color, or national origin, and it evaluates the "social and economic effects of programs and activities on minority populations and low-income populations."
Furthermore, the report says, no one on staff interviewed by the FTA even knew that there was a person or department where Title VI complaints should be directed.
Tom Bazan, a Houston resident whose name should be familiar to people who follow Metro, obtained the report from the FTA, but since a lot of information has been redacted from the draft, he feels that the agency is still stonewalling him.
"For all their transparency, they still seem to be reluctant to talk about unpleasant topics," Bazan tell Hair Balls.
Our METRO?
Surely not.
* Yes, apparently there are a few such creatures left at the place.
ANNE LINEHAN ADDS: Paul Knight's post includes an update:
Raequel Roberts, a Metro spokeswoman, responded to our questions about the report and said that Metro has responded to the FTA report, adding that the agency's final report is complete. (The FTA hasn't responded to Hair Balls.)
Since Frank "Procurement Disaster" Wilson insists that METRO operates in a "completely transparent manner," METRO should encourage the release of the final report so we can all see METRO's response.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 07/17/09 11:33 PM | Print |
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