Community organizations in California's Central Valley have managed to set a precedent in terms of freedom of expression, after a demand in which the California Department of Justice (DOJ) ruled that Kern County violated their free speech rights by denying them contracts for expressing their opinion.
And on December 7, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the DOJ resolution, which states that, after a two-year investigation, Kern County violated the free speech rights of a coalition of community organizations and a small business by refusing to enter and sign contracts with them for having carried out activities of freedom of expression, specifically, for showing support for defunding certain police agencies within the framework of the Black Lives Matters movement.
Reyna Olaguez, executive director of South Kern Sol, an organization in the Central Valley, recalled during an interview with Manuel Ortiz during the Peninsula 360 Radio program, in collaboration with Marcos Gutiérrez of ?Made in California?, that although the DOJ resolution is good, those who were really harmed by the lack of those contracts were the residents of Kern County themselves, especially the most vulnerable, including farm and construction workers who do not speak English.
Olaguez, who is also a political scientist, said that, in October 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the entire world, organizations, including the one she represents, agreed that, as there are various communities that do not speak English and not Spanish in Kern County, it was very important to present to the local public health director a support proposal, in which they could bring accurate information about the SARS-CoV-2 virus to those who need it in the language they they could understand.
"We proposed to the public health director of Kern County that we could help him provide information to the community about what was happening with the pandemic, because it was very new and this happened in October 2020," he said.
The proposal was very well received and they were even asked to start immediately, for which it was necessary to generate a contract between the parties.
?He told us: ?yes, please start the work, this came to me from the blue because I didn't know that I could count on you to help me do this very important work, the Department of Public Health couldn't do it alone. ?. They were super grateful that we proposed this to them. The contract was going to be for one million dollars and we were going to hire six organizations to do the work,” he said.
Olaguez pointed out that the organizations were different, as some reached the Afro-descendant community, another reached indigenous communities, and one reached people from India.
Although the entire atmosphere between the organizations was very good and they were making progress in how to cover the information and everything related, the contract still needed to be signed.
?The collaboration with all the organizations was very nice, but the contract still needed to be signed by the supervisors of Kern County, and here the policy is very conservative, the supervisors sometimes do not see us in a very good light, the organizations we deal with to help the community that needs it most?, he said.
The time came for the Board of Supervisors to vote in favor of the proposal, and then everything fell apart.
?One of the supervisors said he had a problem with that contract because some of the organizations had shared messages during the time of the Black Lives Matter Movement, that the police didn't need that much money, so that's why they took away our contract, and this called the attention of the attorney general of the state of California and the Department of Justice, and they launched an investigation that lasted two years?, he added.
?Just last Thursday they announced that Kern County did discriminate against our constitutional rights because we do have the right to share what we feel with our voice, but they punished us because we shared something that we felt and they took away our contract that was super important?, he added.
Reyna Olaguez highlighted that, by denying the contracts, "they also denied the most vulnerable community from receiving critical education about COVID at a very critical time about the pandemic. It was also when everything was just happening, everything was new for everyone and the community was not receiving the necessary information about the pandemic?
It is worth noting that Kern County has cities such as Bakersfield and Taft, where many indigenous people who do not speak English live.
Regarding the above, the one also born in Durango, Mexico, said that, although a contract had not been signed, the organizations were asked to start the work as soon as possible, so they began training 40 people who would serve as promoters who would disseminate the information.
"We started working, but after 20 days they told us they had canceled the contract, that we should stop all work, that we were no longer going to continue with the contract."
However, he pointed out that the work was carried out months later thanks to foundations that heard what happened and decided to help them, not with a million dollars, but with 50 thousand dollars for each organization with the aim of achieving the objective by six months.
After the investigation and resolution, an agreement was reached with Kern County, which will not give money to the organizations, but will have to work with them so that situations like that do not occur again.
According to the resolution issued by DOJ, the parties worked together to negotiate and agree to a comprehensive plan; the judgment The provision provides that the county will take corrective action over a minimum three-year oversight period, which will be overseen by the Department of Justice and an outside free speech expert jointly selected by the parties.
Under the stipulated ruling, Kern County must, among other things, adopt and disseminate a countywide Free Speech Policy, designate a Grievance Coordinator, develop and provide annual training to members of the Board of Supervisors, and other county staff on the Free Speech Policy.
Olaguez clarified that the organizations will request to create an equity fund for Kern County, with the purpose of organizations applying to it when it is necessary to do community outreach in different languages.
Reyna was clear: "of the residents who died from COVID in Kern County, there were 2,267, and I believe that, if we had started this campaign earlier, perhaps we would have saved some of these lives, because of all Of them, 1,370 were Latino, 151 were of African descent, and 1,596 were men, and that's the thing, more men died than women. I think we could have saved some lives and that is why we are happy with the results of the investigation?
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