GAINESVILLE - Latino activists took the opportunity this past week to challenge the Gainesville City Council to once again rethink the city's at large voting system.
Several members of the city's Latino community approached the city council during the public comments portion of Tuesday's regular city council meeting.
Leading the effort was Jerry Gonzalez of Atlanta, the Executive Director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials. Gonzalez told council members the city fails to recognize the importance of Gainesville's Latino population.
"I would hope that one day we could look at September 15 being the kickoff of a month-long celebration that the city does to embrace its great diversity," said Gonzalez. "It's about respecting the community that is represented and we're starting out Hispanic Heritage Month and to my knowledge there aren't any official recognitions from the city."
Gonzalez went on to cite a recent American Community Survey (ACS)
on the U.S Census Bureau web site, showing the Latino population of Gainesville at 42-percent and the white population of the city at 39-percent. The city's black population stands at just over 15-percent, according to the statistics on the web site. Those demographics, said Gonzalez, are not reflected in the make-up of city government or in the employee rosters of the Gainesville Police Department and Gainesville Fire Department.
"Within the fire department, 93-percent is white, five-percent is black and only two-percent is Hispanic," said Gonzalez. "Within the police department, 79-percent is white, 11-percent is black, nine-percent is Hispanic and two-percent is Asian."
Gonzalez told council members he thinks "the city of Gainesville can do better," as he put it.
"The Latino and African American communities are not respected and they should be."
City Councilman Sam Couvillon asked Gonzalez if he had researched the "why" behind the numbers for the fire and police departments.
"My question is are they [Hispanics] applying for jobs and not getting them...because the insinuation there is that they're being discounted," said Couvillon.
"I wasn't insinuating anything," said Gonzalez. "I was just presenting the numbers as they are."
Couvillon asked Fire Chief Jerome Yarbrough and Deputy Police Chief Jay Parrish, who were in attendance at the meeting, to get information on the recruiting process for both departments to present to Council.
After Gonzalez made his comments, several other members of Gainesville's Latino community addressed council, asking elected officials to spend some time in their neighborhoods, looking at roads that are in disrepair and street lights that are non-working.
Each speaker asked council members to consider restructuring the city's voting system, changing from at-large voting to by-district voting.
