On Monday, controversy again flared when Romney’s Diversity and Equal Opportunity Advisory Council presented its proposed diversity guidelines at a State House forum. Activists expressed concern that the guidelines lack strong enforcement mechanisms and, noting the low turnout, complained that the information had not filtered through to the public.

“This is precisely what got [Romney] in trouble beforehand, doing something without letting the public know about it,” said Julie Patiño, former deputy director of the State Office of Affirmative Action. “There is no sense of learning here. There is a sense of incorrigibleness and ultimately this is about disenfranchising communities of color.”

The diversity council posted the guidelines May 10 on the human resources department’s portion of the mass.gov website and disseminated them to legislators of color.

Press blurbs were sent out to four Boston-based community papers and to the Boston Herald and the Boston Globe announcing public forums in Springfield, Boston and Worcester.

But few people attended the forum in Springfield last week, and Monday’s Boston meeting had to be recessed for almost half an hour because not enough people had signed up to testify.

Blame for the low turnout was passed around.

Ruth Bramson, who heads both the State Office of Human Resources and the diversity council, said that the individual council members, whose ranks include leaders of community groups and private-sector human resource managers, were responsible for outreach.

“We expected they would let their memberships know,” she told the Banner during the recess.

Legislators of color, who were also notified of the meetings over a week in advance, apparently also did little to spread the word to community groups.

“We did very little to be perfectly honest with you,” said Rep. Benjamin Swan of Springfield, who heads the Massachusetts Legislative Black Caucus. “I don’t think it has been done in a very serious fashion because we expected the task force to do it primarily.”

The caucus has been criticized by opponents of Romney’s changes for not becoming involved sooner in opposing the changes. Black legislators were informed last year of the coming changes to affirmative action before they were announced on a Suffolk County holiday. But the general public did not become aware of the changes for months, and only after sustained activism by the Union of Minority Neighborhoods and community advocates did black legislators join the chorus of resistance.

Monday, Rep. Marie St. Fleur showed up toward the end of the hearing. She stood up before the diversity council and suggested they extend the deadline for public comment until another hearing can be held, this time at Roxbury Community College. Bramson acquiesced to her demands after denying a similar request earlier in the hearing that the deadline be extended.

The public comment deadline for the 47-page document was originally set for tomorrow, just two days after the Worcester meeting and four days after the Boston one. Now it has been extended another week, to June 4.

While Bramson said that “the new order would take nothing away from existing [executive] orders,” the task force’s proposed diversity guidelines differ significantly from those instituted under former Governor Michael Dukakis.

Under Dukakis’ guidelines, which Romney will likely abolish when he decides on new ones, the Office of Affirmative Action reports directly to the governor on the performance of state agencies in the areas of diversity in hiring and equal treatment of employees.

The proposed plan calls for the newly created Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity, which replaces the Office of Affirmative Action, to report such information to the state Human Resources Department.

Activists charge that by placing one more person in between the governor and agency-level civil rights officers, the proposal sends the signal that hiring and workplace discrimination complaints are of lesser importance.

The new proposal also calls for each secretariat, or group of agencies, write its own diversity policy, to which the diversity office would then hold that secretariat accountable.

The plan spells out in detail protections for Vietnam-era veterans and disabled people — groups the state is required to protect under specific affirmative action mandates — but devotes comparatively little space to protections for people of color and women.

Sandra Borders, the director of the diversity office, outlined some improvements that she said have been made upon the old executive policy.

“We broadened it to age discrimination,” she said. “We dropped the wait period for hiring and discrimination complaints from 17 weeks to nine weeks.”

The new guidelines also require that all service providers with which the state contracts must provide affirmative action plans before their contracts are awarded. Previously, only contractors being paid over $50,000 had to meet that standard.

The date for the forum in Roxbury that Bramson agreed to has not been announced, but it will take place at Roxbury Community College one evening next week, according to Borders. For updated information on the day and time of the meeting, call 617-878-9700.