After Urbana, Illinois City Administrator Carol Mitten unlawfully overthrew the outcome of a human rights hearing in December of 2020, Check CU began investigating past human rights complaints.  Records showing instances of discrimination complaints from previous years produced some disturbing results.

A FOIA request seeking discrimination records from 2018 and 2019 was sent to the City of Urbana in February 2021.

Whereas Illinois State Law requires public bodies to respond to records requests within 5 business days, FOIA Officer Ross McNeil unlawfully delayed his response for more than a month.  When McNeil did provide some records, he admitted that his response was incomplete, and that additional records likely existed.  A supplemental response was sent two weeks later.

For the years 2017, 2018, 2019, and most of 2020, Urbana’s Human Relations Officer, Vacellia Clark, was solely responsible for the intake and processing of human rights complaints and police complaints. 

According to the discrimination complaint logs provided, almost none of the discrimination complaints received by the City of Urbana were actually processed as complaints.  The logs start in January 2017 and appear to become sparse and incomplete in April of 2018. 

Of the thirty nine log entries in 2017-2018, Clark only treated three discrimination complaints as legitimate complaints.  Clark rejected one, claimed that the complainant withdrew from another, and no clear outcome is indicated for the third. 

Dozens of other discrimination complaints were dispensed with in various ways.  For example, Clark claims that many complaints were “informal”, that the complainant failed to follow through, or that it didn’t count as a discrimination complaint because it was a “police matter”.

Urbana was not able to provide any logs for 2019, but a single page “activity report” showed that there were four “inquiries” and five complaints – a significant decrease in what was logged in prior years.  Since complaint logging is incomplete in 2018 and the previously kept log was abandoned, it would seem likely that the 2019 “activity report” was created at the end of the year as an afterthought, and likely fails to include most complaint attempts.

Urbana could only produce the original complaints and partial associated records for just a few of the many dozens of complaints that were submitted.

Becoming aware of Clark’s refusals to recognize and process complaints from residents, Check CU Founder Christopher Hansen filed a complaint against Vacellia Clark in May of 2020, alleging that she was violating Urbana’s discrimination and police complaint procedures.  City Attorney James Simon refused to investigate Hansen’s complaint, claiming that the City’s ethics laws did not apply to City officials.

Hansen appealed Simon’s determination to the Human Relations Commission (HRC).  On June 2^nd, 2020 the Hearing Body held in a two to one vote that complaints could not be filed against City officials.  One of the two votes was issued by Marion Knight Jr., a City official who was later found to be involved in creating discriminatory job requirements for Urbana.  The swing vote was issued by HRC member and recent Chair Pete Resnick, who could not provide a coherent reason why City officials were not beholden to Urbana’s discrimination laws.

Resnick appeared unwilling to see the City answer for unlawful discrimination, saying after the hearing, “I took the wimpy way out”.  Resnick said that “eventually what we want is an employment action against [Vacellia Clark].  We want her either to either be ordered to [process complaints] and if she doesn’t, repeatedly if she doesn’t do it, we want her fired.”  Resnick further agreed that the basis for Clark having refused a recent police complaint was “bogus”.

On June 1^st, 2020 (just one day prior to the HRC hearing), a founding member of Urbana’s police review board addressed the Urbana City Council, declaring that Vacellia Clark was refusing to properly process police complaints and upkeep complaint logs.

Throughout 2020, Check CU observed that Urbana City officials were distributing employment advertisements with discriminatory requirements, in clear violation of Urbana’s human rights laws.  Hansen submitted another discrimination complaint in September of 2020 which, once again, alleged human rights violations by City officials.  Again, City Attorney James Simon rejected the complaint, claiming that there was no probable cause and no jurisdiction, since City officials were permitted to ignore Urbana’s anti-discrimination laws.

The repeated rejections by James Simon may help explain why so many previous attempts by residents to submit human rights complaints never moved forward.

Another appeals hearing was held on November 10^th, 2020.  This time, the hearing body overturned both of Simon’s claims.  The hearing body of the HRC found that there was both probable cause and jurisdiction to pursue the discrimination complaint against the City.  The prior assertion that City officials did not have to comply with anti-discrimination laws had now been properly overturned.

However, a month later on December 8^th, 2020 Urbana City Administrator Carol Mitten sent a letter to the Human Relations Commission, stating that she was administratively throwing out the results of the appeals hearing. 

Urbana City Administrator Overthrows Outcome of Human Rights Hearing

Neither the hearing officer, James Simon, nor Mitten ever informed Hansen that they were throwing out the discrimination complaint, and no formal follow up was ever issued.  The City continues to be in violation of their own ordinance.

This bold and arrogant move by Mitten rendered Urbana’s anti-discrimination laws and hearing procedures meaningless.  Neither the HRC members nor the Urbana City Council have been willing to challenge Mitten’s unlawful conduct.  Instead, both bodies appear to sit content, knowing that Urbana has no enforceable human rights laws while Carol Mitten rules the City.  In fact, all but one Urbana City Council member recently voted to extend Mitten’s employment for an additional two years.

Since Mitten’s unprecedented denial letter and up to May 2021, at least nine new discrimination complaints were submitted to the Urbana Human Relations Commission.  All nine have been entirely ignored by the City and the HRC members – no formal answer was ever provided and the complainants were never provided any formal or informal explanation.

In May of 2021, after ignoring discrimination complaints for several years, Vacellia Clark resigned and the responsibilities for human rights complaints were transferred to Carla Boyd, who had just been appointed by the Urbana City Council to the new position of “Human Rights and Equity Officer”.

Boyd also refused to process the backlog of discrimination complaints. 

Boyd also ignored and concealed new discrimination complaints that she’d received after her May 2021 appointment.  Boyd received a discrimination complaint in February of 2022, but she refused to process the complaint and she never informed the Human Relations Commission that the complaint had been submitted.  More than four months later, the complainant still hasn’t received any follow up from Boyd or anyone at the City.

Another discrimination complaint submitted in May 2022 to Boyd, and also sent directly to the HRC members, has not received any attention in over two months.  No updates have been sent to the complainant.

Yet another discrimination complaint sent to the HRC on July 13^th hasn’t even fetched an acknowledgement of receipt.

Check CU has also learned that Carla Boyd has rejected at least three other discrimination complaints thus far in 2022.  Those determinations are now being appealed by the complainant – a process which has shown itself to be fruitless no matter how the hearing body votes.

All things considered, Urbana’s anti-discrimination laws, the associated discrimination complaint process, and the individuals appointed to handle discrimination complaints, all appear to operate contrary to their stated purpose.  The City of Urbana has designed every mechanism to ignore, conceal, delay, and deny any attempt at reporting unlawful discrimination, especially when it is Urbana City officials and employees who are committing the discrimination.