SACRAMENTO — In what could be its biggest and costliest recommendation to the state legislature besides monetary reparations, California’s reparations task force over the weekend decided it will propose the creation of a powerful Freedmen Affairs Agency. The new state agency could be enormous, as task force Chair Kamilah Moore was determined to push for an entity that would provide new services to descendants of African American enslaved people. The proposed bureaucracy would also have oversight power to try to hold other agencies accountable for providing existing services in ways that are racially equitable.
“The scope of harm is large, so the scope of the solution should be as large,” Moore said as other task force members questioned whether the proposal was feasible during a more than hourlong discussion about the issue Saturday at the group’s meeting in Sacramento. “We know the legislature is going to do what it wants [with the task force’s proposals],” Moore added. “Why shouldn’t we go as large as possible?” After releasing an interim report last year, the task force must submit its second and final report — with its numerous and wide-ranging recommendations — to the state legislature by June 30. The task force has expressed that it understands the historical significance of its responsibility to be the first to study and recommend reparations at the state level, that it knows its actions are being watched and coul …