Valparaiso City Council Split on AHRC Reforms: Republicans vs. Democrats

Written by Daniel John Dunevant on July 14, 2025, 4:55 pm

Republicans Want AHRC to Stay the Same

Both Republicans and Democrats claim some type of wrong doing. Republicans claim that a group of Democratic council members are attempting to take control away from the Mayor. The statement seems to imply that the mayor should have the final say in all matters in this advisory board. The local Republicans also don't like the decision that the advisory could have reached if the structural changes the Democrats want were to take effect. Let's take a look at their official statement here:

Democrats Want the AHRC to Change

The pre-council meeting statement by the Democrats avoids the part of the republican response pertaining to the payment of the trans author reading a book in our Valpo library. As essentially what they want to do is a structural change to the AHRC as well as a broader service and acknowledgement of other groups of people. The rejection of the grant is said to point to a near lack of activity of the committee. For reference here is the official AHRC page.

City Council 7-15-25 Discusses Their Difference in Opinion

During the council meeting held on July 15, 2025 the Democrats made it clearer what they'd like to do. are attempting to spread the AHRC over the 2 branches of government (Executive and Legislative). Previous to this motion it only would be under the purview of the Mayor. The Mayor states that they are taking away people (votes) from his committee. He says that they should start fresh instead of altering the committee. The Democrat Ellen Kapitan counters with the possibility that having two dueling committees may be inefficient. The Mayor says that he simply is using this committee to provide equal services to every citizen of Valpo. 

Cotton Steps in and states that a council is a public facing entity in which one should be held to account and therefore the council should have a vote share. He harkens back to the beginning and says that the original purpose to serve the public. He says that the Mayor would not lose anything but instead gain input for better decision making.

Costas says they should form a council instead of altering his own committee. He states that it probably would be more efficient if the Democrats built their committee for their own purposes to serve the public in their own way.

Cotton steps in and says that as it is for the greater community then it makes sense to open it up to the public and therefore other representation via the council would be best.

My Takeaways

The claim that there is power taken away from the Mayor is not exactly untrue. A better word for it would be a balancing of power in pursuant of the larger goal of more diverse representation of our community. I do see the Mayor's perspective here where he feels that is already is serving the community equally. While I understand the logic of this I don't have a clear picture of what has actually been accomplished by this council. The reason for this is that there isn't any information about what they actually have done on the official page for their council. The mayor states that it works for the executive purposes but has not cataloged the work of the AHRC for us to understand those purposes.

As an effect of the drought of information about the works of the AHRC I can understand why the Democrats would want reform.

Additional Information

After publishing my article Council Member Ellen Kapitan reached out and gave me some additional insights and information that I think are important to add. Here is the purpose as written:

The Advisory Human Relations Council (AHRC) was established by the Mayor in August 2008 for the purpose of “providing counsel and assistance to the Mayor in [several areas],” including (1) advising the Mayor on the status of human relations in the city and identifying special needs or opportunities to enhance such relations, (2) acting as a resource to the Mayor when racially or ethnically motivated incidents occur, (3) suggesting and promoting events designed to promote a better understanding of minorities and improve the human relations of residents of the City, and (4) serving as a liaison between the Mayor’s office and minority groups. 

There were a couple other applications that were denied through the AHRC:

• Hilltop House Application
• Creative Council Application

The denial of these applications (and the one outlined in the Valpo Rebublicans post) raise questions to whether the AHRC is accomplishing its expressed purpose. There are no public records of approved grants.