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Suit Challenges Diversity Vote

Suit Challenges Diversity Vote BY T. KEUNG HUI AND THOMAS GOLDSMITH - Staff Writers RALEIGH -- In the first legal challenge for the Wake County school board majority and its vow to remake North Carolina's largest school district, opponents filed a lawsuit Thursday arguing that two votes against the diversity policy should be tossed out because state law was violated. The lawsuit, filed in Wake County Superior Court, contends that the school board majority has stifled public participation by deliberately refusing to move recent board meetings to larger venues despite knowing there would be large crowds in attendance. This refusal violated the state's Open Public Meetings Law , the lawsuit says, so votes taken March 23 and Tuesday to ditch the diversity policy and replace it with a student assignment policy canted toward neighborhood schools should be declared void. Some of the civil rights groups providing legal services have also criticized ending efforts to balance the percentage of low-income students at individual schools to bolster overall academic achievement. Several of the plaintiffs are parents and students, many from magnet schools, who have spoken out against changing the diversity policy. "Whether or not you support the diversity plan, the school board wasn't doing what it was doing the way it was supposed to be doing it," said Andrew Snee, 15, a Broughton High School freshman and one of the plaintiffs. School board Chairman Ron Margiotta has toldsupporters they should expect a number of lawsuits from opponents. On Thursday, he said this lawsuit was merely a tactic by opponents to stop the board majority from fulfilling its campaign promises. "I think we bent over backwards to allow people to speak," Margiotta said. "If they want to just bring us into court, all this will do is take more money from the children of this county. Accept the wishes of the people of this county." A court hearing has been scheduled for 2 p.m. Wednesday in Courtroom 5B in the Wake County Courthouse in downtown Raleigh. On March 23, the board voted 5-4 in favor of a resolution calling for the creation of community-based schools and discontinuation of socioeconomic diversity. On Tuesday, the board gave initial approval by a 4-3 vote to a revised student assignment policy that fleshes out the previous resolution. Early warning But the threat of legal action has been in the air since before the new board majority took office Dec. 1 after four Republican-backed candidates swept last fall's election. The Rev. William Barber, state president of the NAACP, warned at the time that if Wake County's new approach to assigning students wound up resegregating schools, the system could be subject to a lawsuit based on the state constitution's stipulation that all children are guaranteed a sound basic education. Margiotta cited the threatened NAACP suit against Wake as a justification for hiring Republican lawyer Tom Farr as interim special counsel. Margiotta said the board's majority members wanted to keep their options open in case they chose not to call on longtime board attorneys Tharrington Smith, whose founding partner Wade Smith is a former state Democratic Party chairman. The state NAACP is among the groups providing attorneys in the lawsuit. Other groups in the case include the ACLU of North Carolina, Southern Coalition for Social Justice, UNC Center for Civil Rights, and the N.C. Justice Center. Orage Quarles III, publisher of The News & Observer, is a member of the board of directors of the N.C. Justice Center. The crowds at board meetings have sharply increased since December, escalating the often rancorous public opposition to the ruling majority. Starting with the March 23 meeting, the school system began requiring tickets for seats in the boardroom. Margiotta had cited concerns raised by the fire marshal for the change. But the lawsuit contends that the board created the ticket policy and chose not to move any of the meetings to a larger venue because it felt that "full public access" might "threaten their narrow majority and jeopardize" their plans. "They felt that hearing from so many people was slowing down the process and slowing down what they wanted to get done," said Woody Barlow, 17, an Enloe High School junior and one of the plaintiffs. The suit notes how the school board turned down the last-minute March 23 offer from The News & Observer and Capitol Broadcasting to pay for relocating the meeting to the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Raleigh. "This is about democracy and the way we make decisions in this country," said Swain Wood, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs. The crowd at the March 23 meeting overflowed into the hallway and outside the building. Angry students began chanting, leading to the arrests of three protesters, none of whom are current Wake students. Tedesco shrugs School board member John Tedesco, a member of the majority, called the case a "nuisance complaint." Even if the board loses the case, he said the only thing that will happen is they'll reapprove the changes again. "All they're doing is taking money out of the classroom to pay for their lawsuit," Tedesco said. "It won't change the vote."

Department of Justice Issues an Objection to Redistricting Plans in Greene County

Last week community members in Greene County, Georgia succeeded in convincing the Department of Justice to issue an objection to the County’s proposed redistricting plans. Using its authority under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the Department prevented the implementation of new election districts that would have prevented black voters in the county from being able to elect candidates of their choice. In the objection letter dated April 13th, 2012, the Assistant Attorney General writes, “The elimination of both ability-to-elect districts was unnecessary and avoidable. Although there has been a decrease in the black share of the county’s population over the past ten years, the ability to draw at least one black ability-to-elect district still existed.” This victory was a result of the efforts of the local NAACP chapter, and African American leaders who paid close attention to the redistricting process, and then organized to ensure their voices were heard. SCSJ board member, Jerry Wilson, who lives in Greene County, helped to ensure that the local group got the assistance they needed. . He says that SCSJ played an important support role. Community members attended meetings, engaged county commissioners and school board members opposed to the proposed changes, drew alternative maps demonstrating it was possible to maintain an ability-to elect district for Black voters, and wrote letters talking about how they would be affected by the changes. The objection is significant for Black Belt counties like this one in Georgia. Over 60% of the county formerly was African American, before an influx of white retirees, people moving out of Atlanta, and investors began to settle in the area and developed major resorts around Lake Oconee. According the 2010 census, the county is now only 38.4% African American. Without this action by the Department of Justice, black voters in the county would have lost their voice in local government.

Permit Issued for controversial Western Wake sewage plant

Permit Issued for controversial Western Wake sewage plant Posted by Rebekah L. Cowell on Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 4:32 PM After five years of fighting the placement and construction of a wastewater treatment plant within their town's historic district, the New Hill Community has received a setback. Yesterday the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers' district commander Col. Jefferson M. Ryscavage issued the Corp's Record of Decision (ROD). The ROD gives the Western Wake Partners the necessary permit to begin building their $327 million wastewater plant at Site 14. That site is located on a 237-acre parcel of farmland taken by eminent domain by the Partners for the purpose of building the 62-acre wastewater treatment plant. The location lies adjacent to churches, playgrounds, and homes. New Hill is a small town on the fringes of western Wake County. Because it is unincorporated, New Hill’s total size is hard to quantify in acres or miles, and there are no defined boundaries. On a map it sits between Moncure (Chatham County) and Apex. More than five years ago, New Hill residents were upset by an alliance of Cary, Apex, Morrisville and Holly Springs, later known as Western Wake Partners. Soon the partners decided New Hill was an ideal location for them to build a wastewater treatment plant to meet the needs of their towns’ fast-growing populations. The project is more than three years behind schedule. It could be completed by 2013, with construction beginning as early as this year. While the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers felt their were no practicable alternatives to Site 14, there are significant social justice impacts that defy the Corp's statement that the project "is not contrary to the public interest." Site 14 sits directly across the street from the New Hill Baptist Church and playground, and a half-mile away from the First Baptist Church of New Hill; the plant will be built within 1,000 feet of 23 homes. More important, 83 percent of the 230-plus residents immediately affected by the sewage treatment plant are African-American; rural neighbors on fixed incomes or retired and elderly. Chris Brook, attorney with the Southern Coalition of Social Justice representing the New Hill Community Association expresses disappointment after an initial review of the ROD with the NHCA. "The ROD suffers from the same problems that have plagued this entire process: it does not adequately consider environmental justice or water quality concerns and also gives short shrift to alternative sites with fewer human impacts," he said.

Partition Sales and Black Land Loss

Partitions come in two forms, partition in-kind or a partition sale. A partition in-kind physically divides the property among owners. The law in most states provides that this method of partition is preferred. North Carolina’s statutes, for example, states that the court shall order the sale of property only where it finds by preponderance of the evidence that an actual physical partition cannot be made without substantial injury to any interested party. N.C.G.S. 46-22(a) (emphasis added). Substantial injury is further defined as, “the fair market value of each share in an in-kind partition would be materially less than the share of each cotenant in the money equivalent …obtained from the sale of the whole, and if an in-kind division would result in material impairment of the cotenant’s rights.” N.C.G.S. 46-22(b). In practice, however, partition in-kind appears less favored by judges.

The quicker partition sale, which sends the property to the auction block, allows ownership to vest in the highest bidder. Partition sales are thought to be one of the primary causes of involuntary black land loss in recent times. The reason is that those who can afford to purchase property on the open market are more often developers with deep pockets instead of cash poor families. Individuals purchasing heirs’ property off the auction block can pay more cash for the property; but, it is those whose heritage is tied to the lands who attach the deepest value. Partition sales separate families from their heritage and their homes. If heirs’ property is purchased by an outside party for development, those tenants living on the land are displaced. At this point, heirs’ property intersects with issues of fair and affordable housing. Families, generally having limited income, may find themselves without a home and in need of affordable housing.

Partition sales can have devastating effects on heirs’ property and fair housing. It is important, therefore, that heirs’ property be identified. If those persons with an ownership interest can be identified, educated, and guided through the problems associated with heirs’ property, their heritage may be secured and ramifications effecting fair housing avoided. For these reasons the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, beginning in June 2008, conducted research to determine the extent to which heirs’ property, partition sales, and black land loss is occurring in Orange County, North Carolina.

Narrative of SCSJ's Orange County Heirs' Property Study
(Part of Appendix 1, with maps)

New Hill Petition for Contested Case Hearing

From Read SCSJ’s Petition for Contested Case Hearing, filed in the NC Office of Administrative Hearings, to challenge the Western Wake Partners’ proposed placement of…

Census Mini-Grants

SCSJ has closed our second round of small grants for organizations to support outreach efforts for the 2010 Census. The final deadline for these grant applications was Tuesday, February 16, 2010, by 5pm. Check out our blog for bi-weekly profiles on mini-grantees.