The village of Franklin started a diversity and inclusion committee in part at the request of the current chairman David Sahli.
While this sounds like a great idea, unfortunately this seemed to be setup simply for political purposes to provide certain people additional exposure to help in future elections. This was made clear as issues were identified with some of the members and little to no action was taken to address them.
When these issues were raised to the President Pam Hansen she responded only to the THIRD request for feedback and the response was completely inadequate. Basically admitting the issue was discussed and no action would be taken.
Members with Diversity Issues
Michael Seltzer
Michael Seltzer initially joined the committee to provide himself with some good publicity. A concerned resident found Mr. Seltzer’s @TheCalendarboy twitter feed full of racially insensitive and intolerant comments and thankfully they got some screenshots of it so people could see it before he was warned to delete it.
David Sahli
David Sahli was made aware of these abhorrent tweets, and instead of addressing this issue and working to have this member removed from the committee he told Michael Seltzer to delete the tweets. Then he continued to support him as a DE&I member and and actively promoted his re-election campaign.
Hiding racism is how things were done in the past and is not acceptable today. Our DE&I Committee Chair should not be excited to have someone like this on the committee, and should not be promoting him for re-election to our village council.
Connie Ettinger
Connie Ettinger is a comedian who has a routine so vile that I couldn’t even watch two minutes of it. Anyone who thinks making fun of someone’s physical appearance or handicap is comedy certainly does not belong on a diversity and inclusion committee.
Where does this Committee go Now?
Thankfully now that the election is over Connie Ettinger and Michael Seltzer are no longer members of the committee. David Sahli remains and as chairman of this committee, but the complete lack of action and progress highlights this was never about DE&I, but was exploitation of an important concept for politics.
Franklin Villagers 