Hurtado commits to enforce Illinois Human Rights Act

On July 15th, the Plainfield Park District was presented with the results of an audit conducted by the Illinois Department of Human Rights (IDHR). This comprehensive review, which examined the policies ratified by previous boards, found that some of the park district’s current policy provisions do not fully comply with the Illinois Human Rights Act.

I, my fellow board members, and the park district executive director, welcome this evaluation of our organization and are prepared to fully comply with the included advisements.

A few specific recommendations were set forth by the IDHR. First, that we revise our sexual harassment policy to include a number of missing elements and submit this new copy for review. Second, that the district develop and implement an affirmative action plan to ensure minorities are not being underutilized within the park district. Lastly, we must establish a set of written policies governing employee performance evaluations and make them available through our employee handbook.

I believe these findings highlight the importance of having new leadership on the park district board. For many years, critical examination of our district’s policies was unnecessarily avoided. I have charged the current board with guaranteeing that these issues are immediately confronted and rectified.

Given the recent concerns pertaining to the board’s compliance with the Open Meetings Act, further scrutiny by state agencies such as this is not entirely unexpected. This evaluation affords us the opportunity to cooperate and implement practical improvements that will make the park district a better place to work and thus a better steward of the public trust. I know that this board can set aside its political differences and come together to address the issues before us.

The full text of the audit report delivered by the IDHR will be online starting July 22nd at PlainfieldParkDistrict.com  

I encourage residents seeking more information to contact me at hurtado@plainfieldparkdistrict.com.

Peter Hurtado

President, Plainfield Park District