The controversy over reauthorization of the Charles Village Community Benefits District, a special tax district that provides residents of Charles Village with extra sanitation and policing, tooka new twist Monday as The Examiner learned that the organization?s entire full-time salaried staff is all white, while its hourly and temporary employees are all black. This means that most of the CVCBD black employees are employed in sanitation and security ? hourly positions that do not pay as well as full-time positions within the organization.
And while Janet Levine, executive director of the CVCBD, said the racial make-up of the organization was not indicative of the long-term employment practices, some of the residents that live in the district are upset.
“I think it is unfair,” said Christian Wilson, a longtime resident in the District who opposes reauthorization of the group. “Particularly in a city that is 65 percent black, it doesn?t make sense.”
But Levine said that the organization has had salaried black employees in the past, and that the organization shouldn?t be judged for “one point in time.”
“Over time, all major positions have been filled by African-Americans,” she said.
The conflict over hiring practices is one of several lingering complaints that continues to haunt the reauthorization of the CVCBD, a process that Levine said is “halfway done.”
“The [City Council] urban affairs committee voted to recommend the bill, now it will go back to the City Council.”
Anderson, though, along with other residents who spoke out at the May 11 hearing against reauthorizing the CVCBD, said the hiring practice is only one of CVCBD?s problems.
“They?re not doing what they?re intended to do: supplemental security and sanitation,” Anderson said. “They want to be an economic development force.”
Levine said improving neighborhoods means doing more than patrolling, citing the CVCBD?s efforts to encourage the city to clean up abandoned housing to make the area safer.
“A vacant house is an invitation to bad behavior,” Levine said.
But Wilson countered that the residents do not agree.
“The intent of the legislation was to provide crime and grime, and that?s it,” Wilson said.
Stephen Gewintz, who has been a vocal critic of the organization, said the racial divide is indicative of the CVCBD?s lack of understanding of the community, one that ? according to the 2000 Census ? is majority black.
“It says they don?t care,” Gewintz said. “It?s one element of the disconnect between the organization and the community.”
