Cap Metro board VP under fire
NAACP rips board’s sole black member, Beverly Silas, for saying African-Americans shouldn’t lead agency.
A longtime NAACP leader in Austin on Friday condemned an assertion by the Capital Metro board’s sole black member, who said African-Americans should not be hired to lead the transit agency, given Austin’s racial makeup and history.
Nelson Linder, president of the Austin NAACP for the past 18 years, called on the agency’s board to repudiate what Beverly Silas, vice president of the Capital Metro board, said during an August work session.
“I cannot even understand her comment, that’s how off base it is,” Linder told the American-Statesman after Silas’ comments were first reported this week by the Austin Monitor. What Silas has suggested “is illegal, first of all. And it has no basis in reality. We’ve had a lot of successful (African-American) leaders here,” Linder said.
In an Aug. 9 board discussion of the criteria for hiring a new Capital Metro CEO and president, Silas recalled a conversation she had in 2010 with Robert Goode, an Austin assistant city manager who was serving with her on a search oversight committee the last time Capital Metro was on the hunt for a new chief. That search resulted in the hiring of its current leader, Linda Watson, who is retiring in December.
“One of the things I told him,” Silas said to her fellow board members in August, “was that I would be definitely opposed to an African-American male coming into
this role. And he looked at me and said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Because Austin is not the place for them. They would have a very difficult time. I would also be hesitant for an African-American female, not as much as a male. But they’re going to have a hard time here in the city just because of where Austin is, period.’”
In a video recording of the meeting, board President Wade Cooper, Watson and board member Terry Mitchell can be seen motionless, staring at Silas as she speaks. Other board members, and executive search consultant Gregg Moser, are off camera.
“Austin is not the best place on the planet to be,” Silas said a few moments later during that meeting. “We’re evolving, we’re changing. Outside of that, we’re an interesting place to be.”
Capital Metro board member Delia Garza, who is also an Austin City Council member, asked Silas later in the meeting if she still felt that way as Capital Metro once again looks for a leader. “Yes, I do,” Silas said.
Garza then said, “I would welcome any candidate, and I think diversity is great, and I would not exclude any race or gender from the search.”
Silas, who has served on the transit board since 2009 and owns a public relations firm, said Friday that she had not meant to say in the August meeting that she opposes hiring an African-American.
“It’s not that I don’t want to see an African-American male or female here” at Capital Metro, she said in an interview after the agency’s Friday board meeting. “But I’m concerned that, because of the environment here, they might be subject to failure.”
Austin, which was officially segregated for decades through a 1928 zoning plan, had a population that was just 8 percent African-American in 2014 figures. In recent years, the historic centers of African-American life in East Austin have given way to gentrification, while concerns over the treatment of black executives at Austin City Hall and police officers’ use of force on African-Americans have fueled discussions on racial tensions that remain unresolved.
The Capital Metro controversy comes as the transit board on Friday approved written criteria for hiring a new leader. The six pages of those criteria, which the board approved unanimously, include no reference to a candidate’s race, gender or age.
The board will review candidates brought to it by a search consultant later this year and likely will vote on a new CEO in January.
Travis County commissioners appointed Silas to the Capital Metro board for a term that runs through May 2018. As word spread this week of Silas’ comments, Travis County Commissioner Brigid Shea recommended discussing whether to keep Silas on the transit board.
Linder cited several African-Americans who have held prominent leadership posts in Austin, including former Austin City Manager Marc Ott, who held that position for eight years before leaving to run a national organization; former Austin school Superintendent Meria Carstarphen, who held that post for five years and left for a more prominent superintendent job in Atlanta; and Sam Biscoe, who was Travis County judge from 1999 until his 2014 retirement.
Two African-Americans, Justin Augustine III and Gerald Robichaux, were general managers of Capital Metro in the 1990s.
Silas on Friday cited several examples of such African-American leaders, including Carstarphen and Augustine, who she said were superstar managers before and after their time here. Austin, she said, was the common link and the common problem. Linder acknowledged there are challenges.
“You might say with Austin, given its population, there’s going to be some issues” with an African-American taking charge of Capital Metro, Linder said. But the board, he said, doesn’t make the decision about whether any challenges associated with Austin are too much for a CEO candidate.
“That decision is theirs, as a candidate, not yours,” Linder said. “That should have just been shut down immediately . ... Because it’s out in public, the board needs to clarify that.”