Reclaim Roxbury examines leadership, structure
Discusses relationship with Roxbury Neighborhood Council
Feelings among Reclaim Roxbury co-chairs speaking at a meeting at Roxbury Community College last week seemed to be that the cart had gotten before the horse at the prior public meeting, which sought to nominate candidates to repopulate the Roxbury Neighborhood Council board. Speakers said the effort had been too ambitious and too soon, and that the meeting’s disorder revealed that more groundwork needs to be established for governance structure, rules and process.
Co-chairs called for refocusing, followed by guided discussion of what community members envision for their leaders. Ultimately, the chairs said, they hope this will lead to development of a community agreement on the standards and principles that all leaders in Roxbury should be held to, not just those of Reclaim and the Roxbury Neighborhood Council.
Reclaim co-chairs also reiterated their interest in merging Reclaim and the RNC, saying the two groups will work together where interests align, but assured attendees that deeper involvement between the groups is reliant on community interest.
Defining leadership
One audience member said that it seemed that some attendees at the previous meeting were there for the first time and were upset because they got the impression that decision were being made in their community without their involvement.
In order to facilitate the community coming together, Co-chair Mukaji Ambila said, there needs to be a clear process and public accountability that will give people faith in the collaborations.
“One of the reasons we don’t have structure is we don’t have trust,” Ambila said. “What happen in last weeks’ meeting, I can personally say, it’s a problem. Our lack of trust translates into crisis in our communities.”
To bring greater clarity and accountability and in light of intended RNC elections, the co-chairs asked attendees to identify requirements for leadership.
Common qualities and standards that emerged included strong and transparent communication, demonstrated participation in the community and community ties. Some proposed creating a process for removing leaders — before their term ends — in cases of misconduct, as well as establishing a review board to hold leaders accountable.
Armani White, one of the Reclaim co-chairs, said he hopes the discussion can ultimately lead to the creation of a community agreement about what qualifications and standards residents expect from anyone in a position of leadership for the neighborhood.
The meeting largely served to kick off ideas. Lingering questions included whether there would be requirements that RNC board members represent a mix of demographics or geographies and whether they must live in Roxbury — the latter was subject of debate in the previous meeting. Current RNC bylaws prohibit adding members who have not been Roxbury residents for at least six months, although two co-chairs of Reclaim Roxbury live in Dorchester.
Reclaim and the RNC
Last week, Reclaim Roxbury and the RNC issued a press release, announcing their collaboration as well as intentions to co-facilitate a community-wide neighborhood council election in the fall. Reclaim and RNC leaders were clear in their support for taking this cooperation further.
Reclaim co-chairs made a case for officially joining their organization with the RNC, although they added that the merging would not happen without community approval.
The RNC currently has 12 unfilled seats. Armani White said that if the groups merge, Reclaim would bring the RNC new energy and membership, and joining the RNC would let Reclaim share the RNC’s legal authority and government recognition.
Alex Ponte-Capellan, a Reclaim co-chair, said that while Reclaim remain separate, presenting a unified voice on development would give the community more power.
“The Roxbury Neighborhood Council is a group that already exists in Roxbury and has history doing that. So we could make our own [group], but then City Hall is going to look at us like, ‘Alright there’s two voices, two groups, they’re disjointed’,” Ponte-Capellan said. “It’s not going to give us as much power as if we come together and collaborate.”
New visions
Reclaim Roxbury also faces many structural decisions, among them whether to be a nonprofit, all-volunteer and/or governed by Robert’s Rules of Order, as well as whether to push for greater power.
Bob Terrell, RNC member, said the original RNC had been wary that accepting funding would make members feel obligated to their funding source, thus limiting what they were free to say. However, choosing to be all-volunteer came with costs as well: People’s abilities to commit time can fluctuate when the work is all unpaid, and the RNC has been largely inactive in the past two years, he said.
Regina McClay, co-chair of Reclaim’s Governance and Decision-making Structure Committee, said they also will have to consider what obligations and risks would come with nonprofit status, and advised looking to other neighborhood associations as models.
Today’s RNC needs expanded authority, Terrell said. Thus far, its abilities have been limited to advising on issues such as zoning and developer selection, without power to push those views.
“Our role was only advisory. It was very, very clear to us that that no longer works,” Terrell said. “We need both serious legislative and regulatory reform to build the presence of neighborhood groups into the development process and give us real authority and standing in that process.”
Need to get it right, fast
Bridgette Wallace, the only person to be member of both the RNC and Reclaim, urged attendees to keep in mind the goal of securing meaningful community voice in development, and what is at risk if that cannot be done.
“[Land use decisions] have a ripple effect when you’re talking about gentrification,” Wallace said, noting that impact of these decisions ranges across wealth creation, equity, jobs and community.
Those who make land disposition decisions weigh in on what developers must provide as a community benefit, who receives the construction jobs and who draws regular wealth from the land use (for instance the owner of a business sited there), she said. The decisions also impact whether current residents are able to continue living in the neighborhood and whether the community’s culture and history are preserved, she said.
“The community that comes in here, they don’t have to preserve the culture. You simply wash it away by building on top of it,” Wallace said.
While co-chairs said they recognized the need to take a step back and more clearly establish structure and processes, City Councilor Tito Jackson also reminded attendees that powerful developer interest in Roxbury creates a time crunch.
“There is $14 billion of construction that is in the hopper right now [in Boston],” he said, adding that two-thirds of the city’s undeveloped land lies in Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan.
“There is a plan for every single piece of land here. I would submit to you that it doesn’t include any of us sitting here.”
Jackson previously requested a three-month moratorium on PLAN Dudley from the Boston Redevelopment Authority and now seeks a moratorium period that would last until the end of 2016. The BRA website lists a PLAN Dudley meeting scheduled for June 20.
Terrell said the displacement that neighborhoods experience today is more sweeping than in previous decades. When the RNC first was operating, “gentrification” meant one wealthy individual moving into the neighborhood, which spurred a rise in rents along the street. Today stands in stark contrast, he said, with companies buying up entire rows of properties.
“The gentrification that we face is far more serious and ten times more aggressive than we’ve ever seen before,” Terrell said. “We embraced this collaboration [with Reclaim Roxbury] back in February, not only because of the conversation we had with Councilor Jackson but also because the crisis we face is so severe.”
