Looking at that Score Again
At the end of 2021, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) released its annual Municipal Equality Index (MEI) survey that ranks how inclusive a city or municipality is of its LGBTQ community. For another consecutive year, Rehoboth Beach’s MEI score ranked at 58, nine points below the 2021 national average of 67.
In response, Rehoboth Beach Commissioner Edward Chrzanowski and City Manager Sharon Lynn voiced their commitment to updating the scorecard. “I was surprised last year when the score came out. I feel that the score is not reflective of our community at all,” said Commissioner Chrzanowski.
HRC celebrated 10 years of the MEI survey with its 2021 release, and with each year indicating an increase in national scores (last year’s average score was 64), the survey “showed that regardless of what’s happening in state legislatures, local leaders understand the ongoing need to ensure that the people in their communities are safe, seen, and served.” Letters set out to explore why Rehoboth Beach isn’t showing similar progress on the continuing quest for visible LGBTQ equality.
That quest starts by recognizing out of the eight Delawarean municipalities measured, Rehoboth Beach’s score came in fourth, behind Wilmington (88), Milford (74), and Newark (61), respectively.
The survey measures five criteria: non-discrimination laws, municipality as an employer, municipal services, law enforcement, and leadership on LGBTQ+ equality. Of these categories, Rehoboth scored just half of its allotted points for municipality as an employer and did not earn any points for municipal services and leadership on LGBTQ+ equality.
According to Commissioner Chrzanowski, the path to raising Rehoboth’s score is twofold. “Clarifying things our city already does and then codifying legislation that we already do by practice would improve the score,” he said. Unfortunately, COVID-19’s permeating effects on staffing (for both HRC and the city) contributed to the score remaining the same for the 2021 survey, according to Commissioner Chrzanowski, who also noted that the city did not have an opportunity to see and respond to the latest scorecard before release.
Last year, Commissioner Chrzanowski began working with HRC’s leadership to clarify the city’s current strengths not reflected in the MEI. For example, though Rehoboth scored “zero” on the “leadership on LGBTQ+ equality” section, Commissioner Chrzanowski notes that the city regularly makes public statements and signs of support for LGBTQ equality.
Specifically, he points to the city’s annual Pride month proclamation, the welcome marquee and opening proclamation for Rehoboth Beach Bears Weekend (which Chrzanowski helped establish when he served on the board for the RB Bears), and projects like the StreetScape Task Force, where Chrzanowski mentions an intention to have a rainbow crosswalk somewhere on Baltimore Avenue “that would signify that all are welcome, that this is a safe place, a safe street, and a safe City.”
Elsewhere, work to codify legislation has also begun in collaboration with HRC, which, as an organization, helps to draft legislation for municipalities.
To improve the “non-discrimination laws” section, the city can implement all-gender bathrooms to be more inclusive to transgender and gender nonconforming individuals. “For that specific ordinance, my plan is to recommend to the Mayor and Commissioners that we enact [policy that specifies] for any single occupancy restroom in the City of Rehoboth Beach, it’s all-gender or non-gender specific,” said Chrzanowski, citing precedence in a majority of downtown businesses that already have single-use all-gender restrooms. “I don’t think there’ll be a huge community opposition to that based on the expenses that they may need to incur,” said the Commissioner.
To improve the “law enforcement” score, Commissioner Chrzanowski mentions that establishing an LGBTQ+ liaison with the police department is in the works. According to the Commissioner, not only will one of the lieutenants be an LGBTQ liaison to the City, but the Communications Director for the City will also serve as a liaison for others, too.
Elsewhere, Commissioner Chrzanowski suggested a stronger collaboration with CAMP Rehoboth could increase RB’s MEI score. For example, for the “municipal services” section, a youth-bullying prevention policy could be explicitly written for city services like parks and recreation programs. Assistance for policies like this are available through CAMP Rehoboth.
In fact, Commissioner Chrzanowski sees a partnership with CAMP Rehoboth as a crucial step to improving how inclusive Rehoboth Beach can be for its LGBTQ community. “The City can easily partner with CAMP Rehoboth and on our website have information on services and on the City calendar, link to resources that CAMP already provides the community,” said Commissioner Chrzanowski. Steps like this would certainly help improve the City’s score for “leadership on LGBTQ equality,” too.
According to the report, the 2021 MEI survey “shattered records, including the number of perfect scores, and the highest average city score.” Next year, CAMP Rehoboth looks forward to seeing the outlined actions and proposals translate to results and higher scores for the 2022 MEI. ▼
Matty Brown is the Editorial Assistant for Letters and Operations Administrator at CAMP Rehoboth.