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A proposed legislative change to the Toledo
Municipal Code means that the often-tumultuous tenure of
Linda Alvarado-Arce, longtime Board of Community Relations (BCR)
executive director, has likely come to end.
The Kapszukiewicz administration proposes to
consolidate the BCR and the Youth Commission as part of an
“across the board” strategy to
“make things more efficient, more cost
effective and more responsive to the community,” according
to Gretchen Debacker, the administration’s legislative
director.
While the intent is for Youth Commission
director Alicia Smith to transition into the Department of
Public Utilities as the youth and rec manager, Alvarado-Arce
has no such pre-arranged soft landing spot. The plan is to
abolish the Board of Community Relations and recreate it as
the Human Relations Commission (HCR) while eliminating the
executive director position.
The new HCR, if approved by city council,
will be responsible for initiatives such as Welcome Toledo
Lucas County (TLC), the MLK Day event and other issues
relating to gender equality, accessibility, racial
discrimination, ethnic discrimination, neighbor relations
activities and other “limitless opportunities that are
available with a ton of groups in our community but not
currently being taken advantage of,” adds Debacker. Yet,
Alvarado-Arce insists that she has already been carrying out
this work.
Is there more here than meets the eye?
The long running personal feud between
Alvarado-Arce and former mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson is an open
secret in Toledo
as the animosity and differences between the two continue to
play out via heated public verbal exchanges between Arce
and, what has been called, “revenge-minded Hicks-Hudson
surrogates” currently serving on city council.
Other detractors are not pleased with how
Alvarado-Arce “took care of things” and complain, “nobody
seems to know what the BCR board is or isn’t doing” or feel
that she is “not doing what she should be doing.” “Too many
times,” said a person who requested anonymity, “Linda is her
own worst enemy by bringing reports to council that are
really just digs at the administration or by taking her
grievances to anybody who will listen”
The Handwriting on the Wall:
The truth is, that Alvarado-Arce’s fate was
perhaps already sealed with the hiring of new Chief of
Staff, Katy Crosby. Although the city council-created BCR
has evolved greatly since its establishment in 1946, it is
clear to all that Crosby’s hiring provides Toledo with an
opportunity to take advantage of her highly acclaimed skill
set as a Human Relations professional and to duplicate the
success she achieved in Dayton, such as restoring the
strength of Community Development Corporations and other
neighborhood initiatives.
My take?
Given the hiring of Crosby, the level of
opposition on city council against Alvarado-Arce and the
lack of support to block the pending legislative change, it
is apparent that structural change to the BCR has arrived.
Alvarado-Arce seems to support the changes
and has decided to move on with plans to open a bookstore
and complete her doctoral dissertation, projects she had
long ago placed on the back burner.
“This administration [Kapszukiewicz] is
pretty much like ‘You know what? If all this was going on,
let’s just seize the moment and just go forward and then
create this new structure where other things from around the
state can be replicated. So you’re getting a bunch of new
ideas and if (Alvarado-Arce) wasn’t included in the budget
let’s just roll with it and just go and change it. That’s
fine,’ says Alvarado-Arce.
“It does need to be changed and it needs to
be updated, but it doesn’t need to lose the focus, which are
the people and its independence,” she adds.
Alvarado-Arce is exactly right.
The proposed change also provides an
opportunity for a fresh start by dropping some of the
baggage that BCR and previous administrations were carrying.
For certain it gives new life to the effort to promoting
interracial unity and community input.
Let’s make something new, then, but let’s
also make it better and with a lot less drama.
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org
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