Durham County commissioner calls manager’s racism accusation a ‘baseless claim’
A Durham County commissioner seeking re-election in a crowded field is fending off an accusation by the county manger that she is racist.
Commissioner Heidi Carter expressed frustration with County Manager Wendell Davis at a meeting in February.
Carter said she was proud of the work county staff had done on a plan to pay for Durham Public Schools’ construction needs but she didn’t like how long it took after the board “made it clear” it was a priority.
“I’m frustrated that it took a near emergency,” Carter said. “I feel like if the direction had been given from management to you all, we could’ve gotten this sooner.”
Davis says that is one of several instances in which the first-term commissioner and former school board member has disparaged him.
“I am now concerned that it is due to an inherent bias that you harbor not merely towards me,” Davis wrote in a letter to Carter. “But people of color in general.”
However, other city and county leaders say there is more to the tension between the pair, including a clash over public school funding and a possible attempt by Davis to keep his job as his contract expires in 2021.
The contract renewal will require approval by a board that will be determined by the upcoming election. Fifteen candidates are running for five seats in the March 3 Democratic primary. There are no Republican opponents in November.
In his letter, Davis cites multiple times he felt Carter was being racist, including a claim that she told him, “You work for the Board, and when we tell you to do something, you’d better grin and bear it.” He said Carter’s language “harkens back to a time in American history, when people of color were slaves.”
“I would say that too often, Bigotry is cloaked in the most liberal of circumstances,” he wrote of Carter.
Commissioner responds
Carter posted a statement on her Facebook page, saying Davis’ letter “contains numerous misquotes and fabrications and makes baseless claims against my character.”
Carter said she recognizes her experiences “are shaped by white privilege,” but added, “My record as a commissioner and school board member has clearly demonstrated my strong commitment to racial equity.”
In an INDY Week report on Tuesday, Commissioner Brenda Howerton said some of Carter’s statements “are racist as hell.”
“I just know when she speaks to him, it doesn’t come off as respectable,” she told the weekly newspaper.
The N&O contacted Howerton but she declined to comment, calling the situation “a lot of he said, she said.”
In a 2019 Durham County employee survey, one respondent said, “Both the county attorney and county manager are easily dismissed and ignored because they are black men.” More than 10 survey answers describe Davis positively, such as “has a vision and courage for change” and a “people-centric leader.”
Jillian Johnson, a Durham City Council member, came to Carter’s defense on Facebook, saying Carter “has proven that she is responsible and accountable to the needs of marginalized residents in Durham.”
“When we allow dedicated, smart, and effective public servants to be dragged through the proverbial mud based on unfalsifiable allegations,” Johnson wrote in a Facebook post, “or even their simple desire to continue to do the work of public service, it cheapens the real, devastating impact of racism and white supremacy on communities of color.”
Divisive politics in Durham
Johnson was recently involved a dispute with City Manager Tom Bonfield, after he said he was “disappointed and surprised” by an op-ed she had written about the Police Department’s use of force.
In a letter to her, Bonfield expressed concern about “the damage it may unnecessarily cause to the community relationships Chief (C.J.) Davis and the Durham Police Department have worked so hard to foster.”
County Manager Davis’ letter to Carter and the related reactions reveal a divide in Durham politics that crosses racial lines.
Carter wrote on Facebook Wednesday that she thinks Davis’ letter was motivated in part “to influence the outcome of the upcoming election.”
In a phone interview, she said the timing just before elections “would raise suspicions..” and appeared aimed at influencing voters. “Frankly, that’s not OK for any county employee, especially not the county manager,” she said.
School board Chair Mike Lee expressed similar thoughts on social media Wednesday, saying there was also a rumor about Wendy Jacobs, chair of the county commissioners, being racist toward the manager.
“It seems very convenient for this to show up two weeks before the election in hopes of getting people to both turn on Wendy and Heidi,” Lee wrote.
Lee said the county commissioners have given the schools more funding in recent years than Davis has recommended. Davis “sees a chance to reset the board” with this election and has “personally recruited” past members of the board to run for election, Lee said.
Davis has rejected the school board’s full funding requests in recent years citing concerns about then falling enrollment and a persistent achievement gap between students of color and white students.
In an interview, Davis said county managers come and go and his letter to Carter is about decency and respect.
“My sharecropping mother and father fought these fights so that I can write new chapters in life,” he said. “I don’t expect to have to rewrite their chapters. I want to write new chapters so that my two children can write new chapters as well.”
When asked if he had asked people to run for commissioner, he said, “I found all of that just absolutely laughable.”
Shifting power on county board
The current dispute highlights changes on the county board, which in the past has often voted along racial lines on issues such as hiring and firing county managers and controversial developments.
The division changed a bit after the 2016 election of James Hill, an African American who often aligns with white commissioners Carter, Jacobs and Ellen Reckhow. (Reckhow is not seeking re-election this year.)
When Davis was hired as manager in 2014, African-American commissioners Howerton, Michael Page and Fred Foster, held the majority. Davis had worked for the county for about 12 years before he left to work for N.C. Central University in 2012.
In June 2016, a vote to renew and restructure Davis’ contract was split down racial lines with Reckhow and Jacobs voting against it, saying they wanted more time to review the changes.
Davis’ previous contract had been year-to-year, but the new one ran through June 2021 and allowed him to collect a lump sum of his salary if he was fired without cause.
Foster, Howerton and Page voted in favor of the new contract. Foster and Page had lost their seats in the 2016 Democratic primary to Carter and Hill, who took their seats that December.
LaVonia Allison, former chair of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, described that vote as “racial” and connected it to Davis pushing the Durham Public Schools for greater accountability.
Carter told The N&O on Wednesday she will continue to disagree with the manager over school funding.
“If it means having to challenge the manager, I will continue doing that for the schools,” she said.
This story was originally published February 20, 2020 at 1:06 PM with the headline "Durham County commissioner calls manager’s racism accusation a ‘baseless claim’."
