There were no second chances this week for a grant application that Alamance County’s commissioners recently refused to let the county’s family justice center send off to the N.C. Governor’s Crime Commission.
But this action on the part of the county’s governing board did not go unaddressed when its members convened their latest regularly-scheduled meeting on Monday.
The commissioners ultimately heard from two area residents that morning about the unceremonious demise of the family justice center’s proposal, which aimed to secure hundreds of thousands of dollars over three years to provide victims’ services for Latinos in Alamance County.
During a designated public comment period, Daniel Ayers of Mebane chided the commissioners for withholding their permission from this grant application, which he pointed out wouldn’t have required any sort of local match from the county
“This funding provided by the state of North Carolina would not have required Alamance County taxpayers to provide a single penny,” Ayers decried. “All that was needed was a simple approval and this community would’ve had an opportunity to receive a quarter of a million dollars for a cause that is profoundly, unequivocally, universally good.”
The commissioners had originally been scheduled to sign off on the family justice center’s application as part of a so-called consent agenda of putatively routine or non controversial items that they adopted en bloc at the start of their special-called meeting last Monday. The grant application was ultimately pulled off the consent agenda at the behest of commissioner Ed Priola, who went on to grill Skye Sullivan, the family justice center’s director, about certain items in this proposal that he found objectionable.
Among other things, Priola took issue with the application’s focus on a “non-white population,” its use of the Anglophone term “Latinx” to describe Latinos, and its partnership with a nonprofit connected to the Roman Catholic Church that Priola insisted has improperly used FEMA funds to shuttle illegal immigrants over state lines.
Prior to Priola’s interrogation of the center’s director, commissioner Pam Thompson had recused herself from this particular agenda item due to her longstanding membership on the N.C. Governor’s Crime Commission. But with Thompson effectively out of action, nary a member of the county’s governing board was willing to hazard a motion to approve the agency’s request in light of Priola’s objections.
Ayers insisted that the commissioners should have overcome these misgivings in order to give the family justice center a fighting chance at securing the requested state-level grant.
“Yet that opportunity was smothered in the crib. Y’all wouldn’t even dignify it with a vote,” the resident went on to declare. “The majority of this board believes that politics is more about hunting headlines than it is about helping humans…this decision was not just bureaucratic negligence it was a moral failure.”
The commissioners received a similar dressing down from Quinn Ray, an Elon resident who serves as a council member in this small college town. The co-host with Ayers of a current-events themed podcast, Ray told the commissioners that he found much to be desired from the way the county’s governing board had responded to the family justice center’s request.”
Quinn Ray: “I understand tough decisions – believe me, I’ve had to make tough decisions as a board member [in Elon],” he added. “but this should’ve really been a no brainer…[By] denying the [family justice center] the opportunity to apply for a grant, [it] shows that we’ve turned our backs on women and children who are trying to escape abuse…This isn’t about politics. This is about dignity. This is about survival. This is about people’s lives.”
Commissioner Priola didn’t offer any response to the admonitions from these two area residents. Even so, commissioner Kelly Allen admitted that she was put off by the non-universality of this particular grant application.
“I think some of the wording was in question because it made it seem like some of the population was being excluded,” Allen went on to explain.
Meanwhile, Steve Carter, the vice chairman of Alamance County’s commission, said that he personally had some concerns that the county would be left holding the bag if the state declines to renew the prospective grant after its initial three-year run.
Thompson, for her part, merely reminded her colleagues about the need to support programs that benefit overlooked members of the broader community.
“It’s very important that we look after every population that walks the earth,” she opined. “It’s looking very tough for everybody who’s in this business.”
