A putatively routine grant application proved anything but when one of the newest members of Alamance County’s governing board began picking apart this request for state-level funds.
The scrutiny of county commissioner Ed Priola ultimately proved fatal to this proposed submission to the N.C. Governor’s Crime Commission, which the county’s family justice center had planned to court for some revenue to provide victims’ services to local Latinos.
“I’m concerned about what appears to be discriminatory language. When you say you’re focus is to serve an ‘other than white population’…it sounds like conditional racism to me…and you use the term ‘Latinx.’ Please comment on the cultural appropriateness of the term when Pew Research states that only 3 percent of Hispanics and Latinos prefer it.”
– county commissioner Ed Priola in his inquires to the local family justice center’s director about a proposed grant application to the N.C. Governor’s Crime Commission
The center’s application had originally been part of a so-called “consent agenda” of presumably routine and non-controversial items that was presented to the commissioners during a special-called meeting on Monday.
The commissioners gave a unanimous nod to the rest of this mundane mélange. Yet, at Priola’s behest, they pulled out the family justice center’s request for individual consideration – a move that also allowed them to entertain the proposed recusal of commissioner Pam Thompson, who is herself a member of the Governor’s Crime Commission [See separate story in this edition].
The commissioners went on to hear the particulars of the grant application from Syke Sullivan, the director of the Alamance County’s family justice center. Sullivan told the commissioners that her agency, which offers a suite of services to victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence, was specifically interested in funds that the Governor’s Crime Commission has earmarked to help “underserved” populations.
“That [the term ‘Latinx’] is the category that is listed in the [Request for Proposals, RFP]. I mirrored the language in the RFP so we’d be competitive.”
– Syke Sullivan, the director of the Alamance County’s family justice center
Sullivan added that her center and the 11 organizations it hosts eventually homed in on Alamance County’s Latinos as the group they felt could most benefit from these funds. With this population in mind, they drafted a request for a three-year subsidy from the Governor’s Crime Commission – with a potential award of $125,000 in the first year of the grant and no required match from the county.
But for all the family justice center’s intentions, Priola found his own attention drawn to some of the wording in the family justice center’s grant application.
“I’m concerned about what appears to be discriminatory language,” the first-term Republican went on to object. “When you say your focus is to serve an ‘other than white population’…it sounds like conditional racism to me…and you use the term Latinx. Please comment on the cultural appropriateness of the term when Pew Research states that only 3 percent of Hispanics and Latinos prefer it.”
Sullivan told the commissioners that she and her colleagues had borrowed some of the application’s verbiage from the Census Bureau and other sources that they mined for data about their “target population.” In the meantime, she credited the Governor’s Crime Commission with the term “Latinx” – an Anglophone usage that Priola observed is eschewed by almost all Spanish speakers.
“That is the category that is listed in the [Request for Proposals],” Sullivan went on to explain. “I mirrored the language in the RFP so we’d be competitive.”
“This organization is part of the Raleigh Catholic Charities Network. It’s also part of the Catholic Charities Network in the San Antonio border area that was flying illegal aliens around the country with FEMA dollars…Several witnesses have reported to me confidentially that they were being flown here to Alamance County. I am concerned that this is part of a treadmill – or the conveyor belt – for bringing illegal aliens to Alamance – of which some are criminal elements.”
– County commissioner Ed Priola
Priola continued to turn up the heat on the agency’s director as he turned to the family justice center’s organizational partners. The commissioner specifically zeroed in on Centro La Comunidad – a resource center for Latinos that’s affiliated with the Raleigh diocese of the Roman Catholic Church. Despite its ecclesiastical blessing, Centro took on a distinctly dark tone in Priola’s account of its charitable activities.
“This organization is part of the Raleigh Catholic Charities Network,” Priola declared. “It’s also part of the Catholic Charities Network in the San Antonio border area that was flying illegal aliens around the country with FEMA dollars…Several witnesses have reported to me confidentially that they were being flown here to Alamance County. I am concerned that this is part of a treadmill – or the conveyor belt – for bringing illegal aliens to Alamance – of which some are criminal elements.”
Sullivan admitted she has no “intimate knowledge” of these allegations. She noted, however, that she and her colleagues have found Centro to be a valuable resource for Hispanics who’ve suffered human trafficking, domestic violence, child abuse, and elder abuse. Sullivan added that some of the people her agency refers to Centro are not permanent U.S. residents, although these “valid visa” holders have spouses are either American citizens or legal residents of the U.S.
From there, Priola began to take jabs at the family justice center’s own institutional ideals, excoriating it for the “social justice and equity lens” in its strategic plan, which he faulted for its lack of “statutory authority.” Sullivan explained that the emphasis on social justice is, in part, a consensus view of the center’s partners – and not a mission statement, as such, for the county agency. She also tried to impress on the commissioners that the center’s potential receipt of funds from the Governor’s Crime Commission would relieve the burden its services place on taxpayers in Alamance County.
“We frequently look for opportunities for federal grant funds and state dollars,” she said, “to diversify where our funding is coming from.”
By that point, however, the damage had apparently already been done.
Priola presently made a motion to scuttle the family justice center’s grant application, which died for lack of a second. Yet, none of his colleagues was willing to hazard a motion in the affirmative – and with Thompson’s recusal, the center could no longer count on a nudge from its most vocal champion on the county’s governing board.
With that, the center’s request died for lack of a motion.
