Community Relations Commission

In a continuing battle for the group's survival, a new director has taken over the reins of a volunteer panel created to fight discrimination in Carroll.Shelley Sarsfield, 41, of Westminster was electedchairwoman by other members of the commission July 1, replacing Richard D. Bucher, who resigned that day.The new chairwoman said she hopes that at least one of the commission's battles is over and that, temporarily at least, the organization has found a new home."We spent six months, from January to June 1991, fighting for our survival.

For the past two years, team Cameroon has reigned as champion of the Mayor's Cup and of the Baltimore International Festival's International Soccer Tournament, and this year, the team is fully prepared to defend its title. Fifteen other teams, representing various countries around the world, including Italy, Brazil, Israel, Mexico, Korea and Ethiopia, are also vying for the title and are ready to dethrone the reigning champs. For the past four years, soccer teams from the Baltimore area's diverse communities have come together for a two-day soccer tournament that is a part of the International Festival, a yearly celebration of the cultural diversity that aims to improve inter-group relations.

The county commissioners last week severed all ties with the all-volunteer Community Relations Commission, the independent agency set up last year to help mitigate discrimination complaints.Citing too much exposure to potential lawsuits, the commissioners ordered the commission to stop using county stationery, to give up the county officespace and to discontinue using a county phone number.County attorney Charles W. "Chuck" Thompson Jr. said that the commission was not appointed by the commissioners but by the Human Services Council, also an independent organization.

A proposed 26 percent budget cut to Baltimore's anti-discrimination agency, the Community Relations Commission, has triggered concerns among some city officials and minority groups, particularly the city's gay and lesbian community. The commission, once hailed as a model for city government efforts to combat discrimination, is down to 17 staffers from a 1970s high of 60. Commission officials, braced for steep budget cuts, were surprised when Mayor Martin O'Malley two weeks ago proposed cutting a quarter of their funding -- from $949,485 -- which includes $50,000 in federal funds -- to $704,618 in his preliminary budget plan.

Despite the resignation of two members and the recent death of another, the remaining members of the Carroll County Community Relations Commission have vowed to keep fighting for the panel's existence, saidVice Chairwoman Virginia Harrison of Sykesville.The panel formedin late 1989 and began mediating local complaints of discrimination,particularly around race and access to the handicapped.But since January, the panel has had to struggle with a withdrawal of support from the Carroll Commisioners.

More than three decades after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. helped lead a civil rights revolution, the city is looking for residents to march to the beat hammered out by the vaunted drum major for social justice. At noon Jan.15, Baltimore will hold its first city-sponsored Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Celebration Parade, in which residents will be able to champion the slain leader's contributions to the struggle for human harmony. The Baltimore Office of Promotion and the city Community Relations Commission are overseeing the parade and searching for participants.

Patricia Johns King, an attorney and former Baltimore Community Relations Commission member, died of cancer Tuesday at Mercy Hospital. The Cheswolde resident was 52.A lawyer who worked in the children's protection field, Mrs. King also helped resolve discrimination issues with the city Community Relations Commission."

A leader of a new county group formed to promote racial equality and understanding plans to sponsor a "racial justice weekend," and asked Carroll's commissioners and mayors Thursday to publicly support the organization's mission."

The Carroll County Community Relations Commission has drawn 10 complaints of discrimination on the basis of physical disability, race and ethnicity during its first 10 months.Still, "There are people who really believe we don't have those problems in Carroll County," said Carroll County Commissioner Jeff Griffith at a panel discussion and forum the Community Relations Commission conducted Wednesday night at William Winchester Elementary School in Westminster.About 30 people attended the forum, conducted to publicize the new commission's goal of investigating disputes over discrimination for race, gender, age, religion, physical and mental handicaps, marital status, national origin and ancestry.

The Arita family, who lives in Saki City, Osaka, says many Japanese have little sensitivity when it comes to racial issues.So the Aritas formed a group to combat racism. Yesterday, the family visited Baltimore at the invitation of black-owned companies promoting business ties between black American and Japanese firms.The family operates the Association to Stop Racism Against Blacks in Japan. Founded in 1988, the organization has fought to remove from Japanese society products demeaning to blacks -- such as black dolls with exaggerated facial features and Little Black Sambo toys.

More than three decades after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. helped lead a civil rights revolution, the city is looking for residents to march to the beat hammered out by the vaunted drum major for social justice. At noon Jan.15, Baltimore will hold its first city-sponsored Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Celebration Parade, in which residents will be able to champion the slain leader's contributions to the struggle for human harmony. The Baltimore Office of Promotion and the city Community Relations Commission are overseeing the parade and searching for participants.

Patricia Johns King, an attorney and former Baltimore Community Relations Commission member, died of cancer Tuesday at Mercy Hospital. The Cheswolde resident was 52.A lawyer who worked in the children's protection field, Mrs. King also helped resolve discrimination issues with the city Community Relations Commission."

Skirting questions about the scandal enveloping President Clinton, her former classmate, Harvard University law professor Lani Guinier said yesterday the country should focus more on the public actions of elected officials instead of scrutinizing their private lives.She added that she is "skeptical about the life of the independent counsel" position now occupied by Kenneth W. Starr.The statements came in an interview after Guinier spoke at a downtown Baltimore breakfast attended by nearly 800 and sponsored by the Community Relations Commission, a city agency that deals with civil rights and discrimination complaints.

Korean-American grocer Chang Joon Cho hardly expected to end up in jail when he called police to report a thieving teen-ager in his Sandtown shop two summers ago.But Cho and his family believe that because the elderly man did not speak fluent English, Baltimore police failed to interview him. When the accused teen-ager, who is African-American, told police Cho had pointed a rifle at him, Cho landed behind bars for three days."

WHAT HAS Baltimore Police Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier done to counter charges that his department remains hampered by racism within its ranks? Plenty, it turns out.Yet progress in erasing the racist culture that once permeated the Baltimore Police Department has been obscured by the continued allegation from one of the force's highest-ranking African-American officers that the police chief is prejudiced.A more impartial source of evidence, the Baltimore Community Relations Commission, gives Mr. Frazier high marks.

It's an unusual case of Baltimore City suing itself. And even though the city will win the case -- one way or another -- it could cost hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars when the the 17-year-old dispute is finally resolved.Baltimore's Community Relations Commission is suing the city Department of Housing for allegedly failing to comply with an order to rehire and give back pay to temporary housing inspector Denver Johnson, who was denied a full-time position with the agency in March 1980.

The Baltimore County Human Relations Commission, which was to recommend to the County Council whether homosexuals should be protected from discrimination under the county code, failed to come to a consensus yesterday and will leave the decision to the council."

WHAT HAS Baltimore Police Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier done to counter charges that his department remains hampered by racism within its ranks? Plenty, it turns out.Yet progress in erasing the racist culture that once permeated the Baltimore Police Department has been obscured by the continued allegation from one of the force's highest-ranking African-American officers that the police chief is prejudiced.A more impartial source of evidence, the Baltimore Community Relations Commission, gives Mr. Frazier high marks.

A Baltimore Police Department study of itself concluded that officers are not treated differently because of race in internal investigations, despite contrary claims by black officers who say they are more likely to be disciplined in misconduct charges.The 109-page report, ordered by Baltimore Police Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier in light of past allegations of departmental discrimination, contends that internal investigations have not been biased. But the report suggested improvements are needed.

A shake-up of the city police command staff -- intended to reinvigorate the department and address concerns that blacks were being treated unfairly -- has instead heightened racial tensions.Police Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier is winning praise for some moves, but he is being criticized for making the highest-ranking black commander share his job with another colonel and dividing those they supervise along racial lines.In a city where race is often a significant issue, even routine reshuffling in the police hierarchy is scrutinized.