MUNCIE, IN — Local activist Daisy Dale has been named to the Muncie Human Rights Commission.
The Muncie resident received the Muncie City Council appointment on Monday, June 1, after being nominated by council member Sara Gullion.
Dale won the appointment in a 5-4 vote. Linda Pang Benner, a retired special education teacher, had also been nominated.
Dale, an employee at Bracken Library on the Ball State University campus, has been active with Muncie Queer Alliance, providing advocacy and services for members of the LGBTQ community.
At Monday’s council meeting, Dale recalled an ancestor, George R. Dale, was Muncie’s mayor in the 1930s and was a local newspaper publisher and outspoken foe of the Ku Klux Klan.
Daisy Dale’s father, Andrew Dale, is local Democratic Party chairman.
The younger Dale said he was “especially against the (human rights) commission being perceived as partisan.”
When the vote on the appointment began, council member Ro Selvey at first asked to abstain, saying both candidates were qualified.
After the eight other council members split 4-4 in support of Dale and Benner, Selvey cast the deciding vote.
Also Monday, the council voted unanimously to recommend Ball State University reappoint WaTasha Barnes Griffin to the Muncie Community School Board.
Council members also expressed their continuing support to locate a proposed community center for the city’s southeast side in the Industry neighborhood.
There have been suggestions the community center might be placed in a former church south of the Industry neighborhood.
Council member William McIntosh — and several of his council colleagues — said a committee formed by the council to consider the community center project was being left out of the planning process by Mayor Dan Ridenour’s administration.
Council member Nora Powell said the committee has been “hijacked, for lack of a better word.”
Douglas Walker is a news reporter at The Star Press. Contact him at 765-213-5851 or at dwalker@muncie.gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Local activist Dale appointed to Muncie Human Rights Commission
Reporting by Douglas Walker, Muncie Star Press / Muncie Star Press
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