A Completely Unnecessary Breakdown in Community Relations

A relatively simple item on the consent agenda of  Carrboro's February 6 Town Council meeting illustrates the impact of the November 2023 election. In November 2023, the previous Council under then Mayor Damon Seils recommended renaming East and West Carr Streets to East and West Braxton Foushee Streets. 

As most Carrboro residents know, Julian Carr was a blatant racist who traded Venable town leadership electrification for renaming the town Carrboro in his 'honor.' Braxton Foushee, who moved to Carrboro from Chapel Hill as a teenager, has been one of our community's pre-eminent civil rights leaders. 

So renaming the street that will run alongside the long-anticipated public library seemed like an easy decision in November. But then the Council asked for that change to come back for approval at the February 6, 2024 meeting, just two months later with a newly-seated Council followed by a short and tight December and New Year's schedule.

Renaming streets isn't just a clerical change for the town. The process had to be coordinated with the US Post Office and with the Town attorney to work out the financial assistance for low-income residents living on Carr Street. Under Carrboro's long history of active citizen engagement in community decisions, the process should have also been subjected to public outreach with the impacted residents.

But guess what? That outreach effort was compromised by the time crunch to meet the arbitrarily scheduled February 6 Council meeting. On February 5, some of the approximately 40 homes on East and West Carr Street, received a letter from the town informing them of the street name change--most of the residents did not receive any notice until someone saw the agenda item for the February 6 meeting. 

Learning that they had 30 days to change their address on all their vital records including drivers licenses, passports, financial accounts, wills and investment accounts, insurances, and many many more, shocked and confused those residents. 

Resident after resident, Black, white, old and young, spoke to the burden this surprise decision and unreasonable timing placed on them. (The average time to process a passport change these days is 12 weeks.) Most of them spoke to their respect and admiration of Mr. Foushee, as well as their dismay that Carrboro's long history of community engagement had broken down.

After all speakers had been given an opportunity to speak (no Carr Street residents supported this change although there were non-residents who did support it), Mayor Foushee pulled the item from the consent agenda and then recused herself as Mr. Foushee's wife. The remaining five (5) Council members then engaged in one of a growing number of discussions that dismissed the voice of local residents for the sake of the ideological beliefs of certain Council members. 

Council member Haven-O'Donnell started the discussion by asking staff to explain how and why the public engagement process had broken down. Planning Director McGuire explained the impossibility of pursuing it within the 2-month time limit imposed back in November. 

Haven-O'Donnell then attempted to propose a friendly amendment to extend the time frame in order to provide time for public engagement. But before she could complete her proposal, she was interrupted by Mayor Pro Tem Nowell who was facilitating the discussion due to Mayor Foushee's recusal. Nowell's interruption was to move the item. Can a meeting facilitator even move an agenda item? I think not. Even if it is possible, misogyny from the dais is not a Carrboro value. At least it hasn't been until recently.

After Nowell insisted the process should move forward, Catherine Fray rightly suggested that this negative reception put a cloud over what should be an honor for Mr. Foushee, suggesting that perhaps a different street should be selected. That suggestion too was ignored.

From there, Council member Posada, who has never disagreed with Nowell, asked the Town Manager if the address for the new library could be assigned to the new Braxton Foushee Street instead of Main Street. She said no. Posada's follow up comments tried to justify the importance of honoring Mr. Foushee--but honoring Mr. Foushee was never the issue. Every resident who spoke out against this change, acknowledged the importance of his contributions to the community and the goal of equal rights. What they opposed was a civic process that omitted the participation of those who were directly impacted by the process. 

Ms. Haven-O'Donnell tried one more time to bring her junior colleagues to an understanding of how a win-win outcome was possible. She requested Council consider responding to concerns with a "Yes, and" solution through staff engagement with residents and a residential address change punch list to assist residents burdened with the change.

Once again, Mayor Pro Tem Nowell bluntly and emphatically rejected that suggestion. Nowell then gave a long, repetitive explanation for why this change is important and how it aligns with Carrboro values. Apparently, he only agrees with "some" Carrboro values. Or maybe he is just clueless to his own dismissive behavior to the concerns of the people he was elected to serve. "This is a public street and public resources go into maintaining it....We are asking a small number of people to carry a burden for the majority of us, but I feel very secure in the majority interest." 

This was the first public leadership challenge of the new DSA-led slate of Council members. Let’s hope before the next challenge, they learn the importance of building trust with the citizens who voted them into office.