Asheville’s Community Reparations Commission members were announced
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ASHEVILLE – After months of anticipation, the names have been revealed of the first community members who will guide the historic reparations process, among them professors, educators, cultural institution leaders and the original architect of the city’s historic initiative.
The long-awaited roster of names was announced at the March 8 City Council meeting. The decision was delayed last month, and the final list still awaits the selection of the county representatives.
Asheville City Council appointed its selection of candidates for the Community Reparations Commission, and also read the names of those chosen by city legacy neighborhood groups.
Of the 25-member commission, five candidates will be selected by the city, and five by the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners.
More: Who applied for Asheville’s historic reparations commission? Council to select 5 members
The other 15 seats on the commission are reserved for representatives nominated by “impacted neighborhoods,” including Burton Street, East End/Valley Street, Shiloh, Southside, Stumptown, Heart of Chestnut and public housing communities.
These 15 selections were made with no oversight from the city, falling entirely to the neighborhoods.
Among those selected by the neighborhoods was Keith Young, the former city council member who wrote the city’s historic initiative and has criticized the process in the past.
“I have many hopes of making the vision of real reparations a reality,” Young said in a statement to the Citizen Times following the announcement.
“Monetary recompense is a necessity and I’ve never said it wasn’t … also the voices of real stakeholders is paramount. You cannot have reparations for Black Asheville without Black Asheville.”
The county commission intends to make its decisions on March 15, said county spokesperson Kassi Day.
The city selected its representatives from a pool of 18 applicants, conducting four hours of 10-minute interviews on Feb. 15 before unanimously approving its five selections.
Director of Equity and Inclusion Brenda Mills, who is the manager of the reparations process, said Feb. 22 that council members deliberated individually, and were tasked with ranking their preferred candidates and sending in selections.
These candidates, and the others named, will ultimately be responsible for developing recommendations for what form of compensation Black residents should receive for historic wrongs.
The announcement of names was followed by applause from council. After the vote, Mills said she was thrilled.
“I do not regret anything,” Mills said of the process. “We took the time to really talk to the communities, the neighborhoods. There has been so much energy behind this … we’ve got people who would have never thought they were leaders stepping up to do this.”
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Each candidate selected by City Council represents one of the five impact focus areas identified in the council’s reparations resolution — criminal justice, economic development, education, health and wellness, and housing.
Council-selected commissioners:
- Dewana Little: Criminal Justice. Executive director of the YMI Cultural Center.
- Dwight B Mullen: Economic Development. Retired political science and Africana studies professor at UNC Asheville.
- CiCi Weston: Education. Executive director of the Christine W. Avery Learning Center.
- Tamarie Macon: Healthcare. An Asheville-based faculty member at UNC Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health.
- Joyce Harrison: Housing., Retired Regional Director of Self-Help Credit Union, which encompassed 24 counties in WNC.
Impacted neighborhood selections:
Burton Street
East End/ Valley Street
- Keith Young
- Glenda McDowell
Heart of Chestnut
- Bernard V. Oliphant
- Renata Conyers
Shiloh
- Norma S. Baynes
- Bobbette K. Mays
Southside
- Mildred Nance Carson
- Roy Harris
Stumptown
- Thomas Priester
- Kimberly Jones
Public Housing Community in Asheville
- Shaunda Jackson
- AngelaYoung
- Aleesha Ballard
Alternates
- Darrin Owens
- Shekiki Jiles-Baten
Previous coverage:
DEI office now fully staffed
After onboarding to an empty office in early November, Mills has brought on three employees — the first time the department has been fully-staffed since last June, she said.
City Council first identified equity and diversity as a key issue in early 2016 and a year later hired Kimberlee Archie, a higher education consultant from Charlotte, after a nationwide search, to lead the newly formed office.
Related: Asheville Office of Equity & Inclusion finally hires staff, moves forward with reparations
But in August 2020, Archie quit the job, saying in a letter to City Manager Debra Campbell, that the “culture in Asheville is lacking accountability.”
The office steadily lost employees until it was left with no permanent staffers and former Assistant City Manager Richard White as interim director. After his departure, Mills stepped into the role.
Now, the department has brought on an outreach coordinator, training consultant and research and data analyst, with all three positions filled as of February.
The city announced the fully staffed office in a March 7 release.
Marcus Kirkman, of Sandford, was brought on Dec. 13 as the training consultant, who Mills said will begin with internal training for city staff, and look at growing the roster of trainings that the city offers.
A U.S. Navy veteran, according to the city release, Kirkman is “a proven leader, providing professional coaching, facilitation, and consulting services to individuals and organizations.”
Kirkman was joined on staff by Darian Blue, who worked previously in Greenville, South Carolina, as the outreach coordinator. He will be responsible for reaching disenfranchised people in the community who are often overlooked in community engagement, Mills said.
Before coming to the city, Blue created R.I.S.E. Coaching and Leadership in South Carolina, according to the release.
Alayna Schmidt, the analyst, began in the department in February, but has worked with the city since March 2019 in the Parks and Recreation Department as an education specialist and teen programs and internship manager.
As well as a research and data analyst, she is also listed as an equity and inclusion consultant.
According to a city database, all three are making the same salary of $53,748.
Bringing staff onboard was one of Mills’ two central priorities, she said previously — the second being managing the city’s historic reparations process. The effort is aided by Durham-based consultant TEQuity, which was picked for a $366,000 contract to manage the Community Reparations Commission.
Mills said the department received 22 applications that met the minimum requirements for the outreach coordinator position, 51 for the training consultant and 14 for the analyst.
The equity team will assist TEQuity as needed, said Mills, but have their specific work and daily responsibilities, which include working in the community and internally with staff to make equity and inclusion “a part of everything the City of Asheville does.”
“A project manager for Reparations was needed to allow us to run our office and get daily tasks done,” Mills said in an emailed statement to the Citizen Times March 8.
As the project manager for the commission, TEQuity will handle onboarding for each of the 25 commissioners and begin to assess next steps — including holding a session on “legal risks” and reviewing how to assess short, medium and long term recommendations that will ultimately be presented to the City Council.
The Community Reparations Commission members will contribute approximately 5 to10 hours per month, possibly up to 18 to 24 months.
Sarah Honosky is the city government reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. News Tips? Email sh******@ci**********.com or message on Twitter at @slhonosky.
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