Chelsea Council Approves First Reading of Human Rights Ordinance Amendment

Chelsea City Council unanimously approved the first reading of two amendments to Ordinance No. 192, which describe the mission of the city’s Human Rights Commission (HRC). The changes seek to clarify the abilities and powers of the commission, as well as remove redundancies from the document.

“Our non-discrimination ordinance is almost 10 years old, and I believe that that is enough time to understand limitations and changes that need to be made to it,” HRC Chair Mary Keaton said. “We have found a few things that just need to be tweaked to make it a little more effective and useful for our purposes.”

Chelsea’s HRC was created as a part of the Non-Discrimination Ordinance (No. 175) and began meeting in 2017. The intention of the HRC is to handle discrimination concerns in the city and promote equitable solutions to issues arising in Chelsea. The new amendments allow the HRC more freedom in handling complaints from residents.

“The proposed changes are modest, but they do allow better allocation of city resources, clarifying the scope and duties of the Human Rights Commission, and provide a clear process and standards for addressing complaints,” Keaton said. “This not only helps our current Human Rights Commission but will also be beneficial to Human Rights Commissions to come.”

The amendments will come before Council for a second reading and decision at their next meeting, scheduled for Nov. 3.