April 14, 1999

STONEWALL SITE DESIGNATION

• The New York State Historic Preservation Review Board voted to approve Stonewall to be recommended for the National Registry of Historic Places of the National Park Service (NPS).  The next step is for the NPS to send a listing of proposed sites to be published in the Federal Register for comment.  This is basically a list of names and locations of proposed sites.  At this point, no obstacles to getting on the National Registry of Historic Places are foreseen.
  
  
• Once this is completed, the site will be automatically considered for National Historic Landmark designation.  The Board that will make this decision is not currently in place.  If it is constituted soon, the earliest the Stonewall site would be considered would be sometime this coming fall, six to nine months after the board is appointed.  Delays in establishing the board will push this date further into the future.
  
  
• Shawn Flynn of EPA GLOBE wanted to know how EPA GLOBE could become involved in supporting this effort.  Jay or Steve will get back to this person.

MATTHEW SHEPARD MEMORIAL

• Krystal, working in Rawlins WY, did some extensive on-the-ground research to determine the location and ownership of the site where Matthew Shepard was killed.  Krystal sent plats and maps of the site to Jay, who displayed them at the meeting.  The site is on private, not Federal, land off a two-track road on a fairly short section of fencing.
  
  
• Jay has not received a response from the Shepards to his letters offering GLOBE assistance, and a check he sent for the Foundation has not been cashed.  He will report back when he hears back from them.

GAY PRIDE CELEBRATION

• Andy and Jim have not been pleased with the progress being made by the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) in planning the Department’s celebration of gay pride.  Jay sent an email to Jim Joiner of OSM’s EEO office, asking the status of inviting Tammy Baldwin to speak at the event, as well as asking an update on the related event plans.  He has not yet heard back.   Jay, Chris and Jim will get with Andy to determine the best options for making some progress.  They may prepare a letter for Kathy Karpin’s signature to Tammy.
  
  
• Jay reported that David asked about our coordinating with other federal GLOBE groups for the Capital Pride Festival, and Jay invited him to pursue this and bring back information / recommendations.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION SENSITIVITY TRAINING / POLICY DISSEMINATION / EEO COUNSELORS

• Jay has submitted to Melodee Stith two or three names of people from GLOBE who were interested in becoming EEO counselors, in order to assist in cases that may involve sexual orientation harassment or discrimination.  The group talked briefly about how much effort would be involved.  Anyone who would like to talk with Bob about his past experience as a counselor can call Bob Veltkamp at 202-208-3441.
  
  
• The Sexual Orientation Sensitivity Training was also discussed, including the fact that some of the EEO staff, who attended the training, are among those opposed to treating sexual orientation as a civil rights issue.
  
  
• On a related note, a Bureau of Reclamation employee has expressed concerns about receiving communications by email from GLOBE, since the supervisor has been known to read people’s email and may take adverse action if he finds out.  Jay has discussed the new policies and protections with the employee, but the employee still has concerns.  Jay will continue to provide what support he can and try to help clarify the facts of the situation by calling the employee.  This employee was our only GLOBE member from the Bureau of Reclamation, and he has been removed from the membership list at his request.
  
  
• Situations like this, as well as nasty responses to DOI’s dissemination of information on sexual orientation protections and policies, are being used to help target offices for sensitivity training efforts.
  
  
• Jay is keeping in touch with Melodee about the bureaus getting the word out on the new procedures.

Interior GLOBE Web Page

• Bob brought a few pages from a draft web site for review.  Members were asked to look them over and make any suggestions to Bob about what should be included to make the site useful/interesting.  Included in the pages was a sample web site policy.  The first three paragraphs were drafted for our site.   The rest of the document is from the Department’s Diversity web site policy page, provided as an example.  Please provide suggestions to or 202-208-3441.
  
  
• There was a brief discussion about the layers we have to go through to find DOI GLOBE information on Interior’s web site.  Bob will look into proposing a solution to those in charge.

Next Meeting

• DOI GLOBE will next meet on May 12, 1999.  The meeting location will be in Rm. 7000B MIB, for this meeting only.

Back to Meeting Notes List

Revised: 11/29/99
Robert_J_Veltkamp@nbc.gov