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SPPC Holds Off On Co-Chair Election

The election of a private sector co-chair for the city Strategic Planning and Partnerships Commission will have to wait at least one more month.

On Thursday, the commission met with plans to elect a new private sector co-chair person, however, because of a lack of a quorum, the vote could not take place. Gregory Rabb, commission public co-chairman and City Council president, said seven members of the commission attended the meeting and they needed eight to elect a new private sector co-chair.

”We will need to wait for the February meeting,” Rabb said.

In December, Jennifer Gibson resigned the position due to new responsibilities as a senior vice president/south district manager for Northwest Bank. Gibson had been on the commission for 15 years and had been a co-chair for more than a decade.

The Strategic Planning and Partnerships Commission is a volunteer group that meets at least once a month to study and discuss various methods of improving life in the community. The group forms smaller action teams to progress the goals set by the commission.

The next meeting for the commission is slated for 8:30 a.m., Thursday, Feb. 16.

In other business, a presentation by Terri Cook on the transgender initiative was also rescheduled for the commission’s March meeting. Cook, of Westfield, is an author and mother of a transgender child.

Rabb said during the commission meeting he discussed that May 2 will be the Day of Action for advocacy groups in Albany. He said as a member of the New York State United Teachers Union’s LGBTQ Committee, they will be gathering with state legislators to discuss the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, also known as GENDA. Rabb said the bill would protect people from discrimination based on their gender identity or expression. He said the bill passed the state Senate last year, but wasn’t brought to the floor in the state Assembly.

The GENDA Act would amend the state Human Rights Law to provide clear and explicit protections from discrimination based on gender identity/expression, including wrongful employment termination, refusal to hire, rental evictions and denial of public housing accommodations, refusal of business and services and threats of and actual physical harm.

”It would make gender identity a protective class, which it isn’t right now,” Rabb said.

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