County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer has let us down

Conversations with Nicole

Nicole Murray Ramirez

For almost four years, the San Diego County Human Relations Commission has become a most controversial and divisive commission with public outbursts of homophobia and anti-semitism. One commissioner actually said that the LGBTQ community, and especially transgender people, are an “abomination before God” and that we are all going to Hell.

Other commissioners have made anti-semitic comments repeatedly at meetings and have never been called out of order. This brand of hate speech has continued on some commissioner’s social media pages, as well as in public.

Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer has sadly and absolutely let her LGBTQA and Jewish communities down by not taking a stance on this issue for almost four years. It has actually been Supervisor Nora Vargas, who, even before she was elected to her current role as chair of the board of supervisors, has been constantly behind scenes and in public statements trying her best to fix this now broken county commission.

In fact, Supervisor Lawson-Remer has only focused on this commission when it came to re-election time – and just weeks ago, she actually voted to reinstate an anti-semitic commissioner. The day after this vote she stated to the press that she “now regrets this vote” but has still not done anything about it.

I must commend Supervisors Joel Anderson and Jim Desmond for voting in opposition to the re-appointment of this anti-semitic commissioner.

Supervisor Lawson-Remer could have become a profile in courage and stood tall against anti-semitism and homophobia/transphobia. Instead, she stood by as this hate speech by commissioners continued and continued. I previously was a strong supporter of Supervisor Lawson-Remer, but I can not and will not support her again.

I commend the board of supervisors for recently suspending the San Diego County Human Relations Commission, a commission that I lobbied for over 36 years to be reinstated, and named after San Diego civil rights icon and former county supervisor Leon Williams.

I sincerely apologize to former Supervisor Ron Roberts, former District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, and former Supervisor Nathan Fletcher, who worked with me to get this commission reinstated with the hope of bringing the community together. Unfortunately, this has become a commission that divides communities.

And I most sincerely apologize to Leon Williams for what this commission has become.

This commission has already spent over $120,000 of taxpayer funds on two separate consultants who accomplished nothing. And now, the chair of the commission wants to spend even more money to hire more consultants!

Consultants are not the answer … a new commission is the only answer.–Nicole Murray Ramirez is a lifelong Latino and LGBT activist and advocate, a longtime city commissioner, and is the Queen Mother of the International Imperial Court of the Americas. He can be reached at [email protected].

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