By Matt Russell
Monday, January 26, 2009
Around 30 community leaders including minority community members, Mayo Clinic and IBM representatives, school leaders, and government officials are expected to attend the meeting, which also could include the FBI, according to Mayor Ardell Brede.
The 6 p.m. meeting is closed to the public and the media, which was a Department of Justice stipulation, Brede said. The department official from Chicago who arranged the meeting with Brede could not be reached for comment.
The meeting is voluntary and will focus on brainstorming solutions to an increase in bias crimes reported in Rochester in 2008, Police Chief Roger Peterson said.
Rochester reported eight bias crimes in 2008, compared to three the year before.
The bias crimes reported last year included a June 24 incident in which vandals etched a 10-foot-tall swastika into a green at Northern Hills Golf Course, where two years earlier vandals spray-painted several swastikas on the pro shop and on all the course's golf carts.
Also reported last year was the October beating death of a Somali man in a downtown Rochester alley. A Department of Justice official specifically mentioned the beating death while discussing the need for the meeting, Brede said.
Ideas could be raised at the Tuesday meeting, which could be studied and possibly implemented, Brede said. It isn't clear what the Department of Justice's role will be beyond the meeting itself, he added.
"I'm not sure what will come out of this," Brede said. "Through all the discussions (with the Department of Justice) I'm expecting there will be something -- like he (the department representative) says, 'based on the capacity of your community' -- that will happen."
One thing Brede said he wanted to avoid was repeating the "Not in Our Town" slogan that former mayor Chuck Canfield introduced in 1997 after a series of clashes between blacks and whites in Rochester.
"I don't like that phrase 'Not in Our Town' because it says we want to run out everyone who doesn't agree with us, though I know that's not what was meant," Brede said.
Among those invited to attend the meeting is Kay Hocker, executive director of the Diversity Council in Rochester.
"I expect a positive outcome and I think it will help to mobilize our community in a positive way," she said.
Source: Post-Bulletin, Jan 26, 2009