Human Rights Commission selects new chair

La Crosse’s Human Rights Commission held its monthly meeting Wednesday with a line-up completely different from only six months ago.

The five members who attended on Wednesday have all been appointed since the end of February. That’s when four commissioners resigned as a group, to protest restrictions on what community problems they were allowed to investigate.

One of the commission’s first items of business was a discrimination complaint from a public housing tenant.

The city attorney’s office advised the commission to refer the complaint to HUD, which runs the housing units.

In other business, the commission named its chairman, who happens to also be newest member.

Only minutes into his first commission meeting, Justice Weaver was elected chair, in deference to his standing as the city council representative on the commission.

Weaver was recently appointed by Mayor Tim Kabat to replace Jacqueline Marcou as the council rep. on the panel.

Marcou was one of just two people who remained on the commission, after the February resignations.

Julia McDermid was named vice-chair of the commission on Wednesday.