Is Raleigh ready to discuss apologizing for its racist and oppressive past?
Twice in the past year, Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin has delayed discussing a resolution that could include Raleigh apologizing for its past treatment of Black people.
In the first incident last summer, public documents show Baldwin asked a city staff member to remove people from a list of those signed up to speak at a City Council meeting if they wanted to address reparative justice. Baldwin denies asking for the people to be removed from the list.
In the second, Baldwin asked the city attorney this month to review the “reparative justice issue” before voting on whether to let the city’s Human Relations Commission work on the topic.
The mayor says she does not remember the first incident and only wanted legal advice before the council discussed the second request.
“It’s about free speech,” said Council member Christina Jones who recently asked about the speakers list. “Our public comment section is open for people to speak about anything they want. And for anyone to prevent the public from doing that is a violation of their right to come and speak to us.”
Reparative justice
Married couple Deborah Bromiley and John Shuford are members of the Raleigh Friends Meeting, a local Quaker group working with the city’s Human Relations Commission on an reparative justice resolution. Mary Thompson, that board’s former chair, said those conversations began in 2021.
Reparative justice works to focus on those who have been harmed and on repairing past harms. The resolution called on the city to apologize for its “past participation in, enforcement of and benefiting from the enslavement” of Black people, and to apologize for the city’s enforcement of segregation, Jim Crow laws and implementing “urban renewal programs” that destroyed Black communities in the city.
The resolution also calls on the city to create a racial equity and reparative justice commission to identify the city’s role in its historic oppression of Black people and make recommendations to policies to remediate that harm.
They started a petition that has more than 500 signatures urging Raleigh to adopt the resolution, and about two dozen organizations have also signed on, Shuford said. They’d hoped the resolution would be approved before last year’s Juneteenth celebration.
Thompson said she was told she’d be able to present the resolution as an agenda item at the June 7, 2022, meeting. Several people, including Bromiley and Shuford, signed up to speak during the public comment part of the meeting.
But a few days before the meeting, city staff told her that was a mistake, she wouldn’t be speaking to the City Council and she’d need to instead include the resolution in the Human Relation Commission’s work plan.
“I have removed you from our public comments section for tomorrow night, as we want to make sure the conversation surrounding the resolution occurs at the same time,” according to a June 6, 2022, email sent to a person signed up to speak during public comment.
Those signed-up to speak on the topic were emailed by city staff saying there would be a public hearing on this topic, but a date was not specified.
“We were all geared up; a lot of other people had signed up,” Bromiley said. “So one, we were disappointed. But on the other hand, if there was, if, if a special meeting had been had come to fruition, that would have been exciting, right?”
“That would have been great,” Shuford said.
“There would have been a special meeting about this,” Bromiley said. “And we heard nothing after that. It was, you know, kind of radio silence.”
‘Not a normal process’
A March 1, 2023, city memo from former City Clerk Gail Smith to the city manager, obtained by The News & Observer through a public records request, outlines what occurred leading up to people being removed from the public comment list of the June 7, 2022 meeting.
“After the Budget Meeting that day, the Mayor asked (a clerk staff member) to reach out to the persons who had signed up to speak about Community Reparative Justice and advise that the city was working on a date for a public hearing on the issue and it would be best to have all the conversation surrounding the resolution to be heard at the same time, therefore we would be removing their name from the public comment list,” according to the memo.
In an interview, Baldwin denied telling a staff member to remove people.
“As far as I’m concerned, it did not happen,” she said. “I do not remember that happening. And that’s not a normal process. So I’m kind of stumped as to where that came from.”
However, Baldwin did say she remembers asking the city manager if this was in the Human Relations Commission’s work plan.
“It concerns me that it happened,” she said. “But then it seems to me that they went back and followed the process. Because now, this issue, it will be coming before us (in the work plan). It’s with the city attorney now. But the Human Relations Commission did go back and follow the process.”
She also said she’s “stumped” about where the idea for a public hearing on the topic came from.
“That’s the part of the memo that really surprised me because that would not have been the normal course of action,” Baldwin said. “So I’m not sure where this came from with a future public hearing. Because first off that’s not the process we would follow if it was on their work plan. And second, it wasn’t (yet) on their work plan. So somebody, somewhere made an assumption that this was for a future public hearing.”
‘It creates real concern’
State law requires municipalities like Raleigh to hold a public comment period at least once per month when local governing boards meet. Raleigh has opted to hold public comment periods during two of its meetings each month.
Frayda Bluestein, a professor of public law and government at the UNC School of Government, has written about public comment policies. In an email to The N&O, she said she doesn’t “know any basis” for removing someone from a public comment list “other than that the person or subject don’t meet the city’s requirements.”
The state law also allows cities to adopt “reasonable rules,” which Raleigh calls its “rules of decorum.”
“The Rules of Decorum ... are not intended to limit the content of the speaker’s message, but are instead to ensure that this part of the Agenda is conducted in a civil and orderly manner,” according to the rules on the city’s website.
Local governments have “broad authority” when it comes to setting up limited public comment and “opening up spaces to talk about certain subjects,” said Brooks Fuller, director of the North Carolina Open Government Coalition.
“It creates real concern when elected leaders decide which matters of public concern are fit for public comment and which aren’t,” he said in an interview with The N&O. “Especially with a council with a broad grant of authority to conduct city business. I don’t see the interest in shutting down public comment on such an important issue.”
If those people were told there would be a public hearing on the topic, Fuller said that meeting should be scheduled.
“I think that’s the thing that they ought to do,” he said. “Set up a special meeting where this is the lone topic, and they should do it soon. If people have been waiting for nine months to speak on this, the time is now.”
The city of Raleigh did not respond to The N&O’s questions about how many people were removed, what the city’s policy is for removing people and if any policies have changed to prevent this from happening in the future.
New City Council members elected
Jones is one of four new members of the Raleigh City Council sworn in this past December.
On Jan. 17, Jones asked the rest of City Council about what its policy was for removing people from the public comment sign-up sheet. She said people had contacted her about being removed from the list. Thompson, the former Human Relations Commission chair, confirmed she spoke to Jones about the issue.
“I was a little bit confused as I’ve never heard of somebody being removed from public comments,” she said.
Smith, the former clerk, said this did happen sometime in 2022 and the people were advised there would be an upcoming public hearing but one had not been scheduled. Jones asked how the people got removed.
“It’s a very unusual situation and, to my knowledge, the only time it’s ever occurred,” said Smith, who recently retired after 52 years serving as clerk. She also said she’d do some research and get back to Jones about the issue.
Jones declined to comment on the record after the January meeting.
How to hold City Council accountable?
At a March 7, 2023, meeting, Jones asked about the city’s rules for holding council members accountable. Baldwin responded, asking if the council’s code of conduct had been shared with Jones.
“So that’s a guiding principle,” Baldwin said. “And the issue with that is it has no teeth.”
“How do we make it have teeth,” Jones asked.
“We’d have to revise it and get the five votes necessary to give it teeth,” Baldwin said.
On March 21, 2023, Jones brought up the March 1 memo and directly asked Baldwin about removing people from the public comment list.
“In the name of accountability, I have two questions,” Jones said. “One, Mayor Baldwin, did you authorize the removal of residents from public comment with the promise of a public hearing that has yet to occur? And, two, are we ready to schedule the promised public meeting?”
Baldwin said “No.”
“I had nothing to do with removing anybody from public comment,” she said.
Jones asked why the memo that contradicted that, to which Baldwin said, “I don’t authorize that.”
In an interview in April, Jones said she values the public comment portion of the meeting because it’s when the City Council can hear directly from residents.
“I don’t want any resident to feel discouraged for coming in saying anything they want to say. We’re here to be a representative for them,” she said. “And that doesn’t mean everything is always nice and tied up in a bow. You know, we have to hear both the happy and the angry side of issues. And I don’t ever want to hide that from from view.”
Reparative justice confusion
On April 4, the city’s Human Relations Commission brought its annual work plan, which includes the reparative justice resolution, to city leaders for approval.
Immediately after the presentation, Baldwin asked the city attorney to review the reparative justice resolution part of the plan.
“I’m kind of confused about the whole reparative justice issue,” Baldwin said. “I’ve heard mixed things. Is this something your office could look at before we bless it in the work plan. And just so we have clarity on what we can legally do.”
This is a new topic, said City Attorney Robin Tatum and there are things that local governments have the authority to do, including issuing an apology, and there are somethings cities don’t have authority to do.
“It’s such a broad term, reparations and reparative justice; it covers a lot of different things,” Tatum said. “And different communities have done different things. So we would be glad to kind of do an analysis of what has been upheld and what has not and what other local governments have done so that if you go down this road, that anything that’s considered you feel comfortable when it comes back, that it’s within your authority.”
Tatum estimated it could be reviewed within the next 90 days but it could be back as soon as a May meeting.
The Raleigh City Council approved the work plan without the resolution piece during the April 4 meeting.
‘Apologies mean nothing without action’
On Monday, The N&O asked Baldwin whether she thinks the city should apologize for its past treatment of Black people and for the city’s past racist acts.
“Apologies mean nothing without action and I’m more interested in improving people’s lives through action,” Baldwin replied in a text message. “We passed laws that ended exclusionary zoning to encourage housing affordability and choice. We have initiated partnerships to prevent gun violence. We are actively looking at more opportunities to assist our unsheltered. And we are expanding transit options. All of this will give people new opportunities for economic growth and potential.
“We all need to work together to ensure that the wrongs of the past are never repeated and that we look to the future with social justice a top priority,” she said.
This story was originally published April 18, 2023 at 5:30 AM.
