My executive legal staff began a thorough review of each case pending at the agency. With the reenergized help of our staff attorneys and investigators, we have issued determinations for almost 4,000 cases, leaving the Commission with a current inventory of 1,100 cases; a manageable caseload average of 40 cases per attorney and investigator. Working now with a one-year turn around time, they continue to review new cases to ensure that the allegations are jurisdictional and meritorious.

Another goal this first year was to build programs in the Community Relations Bureau and integrate them with the work of the Law Enforcement Bureau. I began with re-training for the entire staff on the Human Rights Law and the operations of the agency. Community Relations staff began rotating through the Law Enforcement Bureau to assist with complaint investigations. We also initiated several new or expanded programs for protected populations under the law: employment rights for immigrants, accessibility for the disabled and elderly, educational presentations for middle and high school students, mortgage foreclosure counseling for victims of discriminatory predatory lending practices, and community and peer mediation for intergroup tensions.

The future at the Commission looks bright. We have testers operating throughout the city to identify systemic human rights violations. Attorneys will be assigned to the five borough-based Community Service Centers for filing and investigating complaints and participating in community education. We will be implementing community mediation programs to intervene before minor situations escalate and a peer mediation option for the schools. Finally, the Commission is attempting to contract with the US Housing and Urban Development to prosecute fair housing complaints. Those cases would generate income for the Commission, making us less reliant on City tax-levy dollars.

All of us at the Commission look forward to an even better year in 2003.