Buncombe County should share plan for tracking racial data at upcoming Summit

The County has scheduled a Summit for Saturday, July 20th entitled “Leading with Race.” The invitation reads in part: “Almost four years after the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners declared racism a public health and safety crisis, named equity a foundational value, and adopted a Racial Equity Action Plan, we’re sharing our progress on the goals we’ve accomplished and the County’s next steps.”

Deep racial inequities are present in literally every dimension of life in Buncombe County: economics, education, criminal justice, health, and housing. The County has pledged to address these inequities, which is an important starting point. However, the County has a tendency not to track or report on racial demographic and equity data in their programs and processes. This issue was prominently flagged by the Carter Group in their Cease The Harm audit from earlier this year.

We reported on this issue in our GAP reports on 6/17/24, 6/24/24, 7/1/24, and 7/8/24 and in our Report Back updated on 7/11/24. We haven’t yet received a response from Buncombe County Manager Avril Pinder or the County Commission. We are continuing the call to advocates for racial equity to join us in asking: is Buncombe County committed to a comprehensive strategy to shift its culture and practices in the direction of being data-informed, with an important emphasis on gathering racial demographic data for all of their programs? And if they are, when and how will that strategy be implemented? 

The Summit scheduled for this Saturday seems like an excellent opportunity for County leaders to announce their intentions and plans. They will be reviewing progress on the Racial Equity Action Plan, adopted in 2021, which included as a goal: “Establish organizational equity and accountability processes to increase capacity to make data informed decisions.” If that remains a goal, we’re looking forward to hearing what plans the County has for pursuing it.

Things to do

Join us in reaching out to County leaders to encourage them to use the opportunity of the Leading with Race Summit to announce the County’s plans for collecting and analyzing racial equity data for all of their programs and funded projects. (If you’ve sent emails in the past few weeks around this issue, thank you – and we encourage you to reach out again with this new request that they address this issue on Saturday.) We also invite you to join us in attending the Summit. 

You can register to attend the Summit here, and use our email template below to send them a message about this issue (and the one that follows).

Buncombe County begins sharing racial data for Board and Commission candidates

At their meeting this Tuesday, the Buncombe County Commission will be considering multiple applicants for four different Boards and Commissions (Early Childhood Education, Land Conservation Advisory Board, and Asheville Buncombe Technical CC Board of Trustees). Information about these candidates, including their racial identities, was shared in a public document linked to the agenda released last week. 

We appreciate the County taking this step. Over the past year and a half, we’ve expressed concern multiple times that the County doesn’t share racial identity information about its Boards and Commission candidates. (The City of Asheville, in contrast, publicizes this information prior to City Council votes on candidates.) It seemed to us a small but meaningful step the County could take to increase transparency around the racial demographics of its Boards. We had conversations with both County Commissioners and County staff, all of whom agreed that this change made sense, but implementation has lagged behind intention. We’re glad to see that remedied with this most recent County agenda.

Things to do

Join us in reaching out to the County Manager and County Commission to express appreciation for this step toward greater transparency around racial equity in County Boards and Commissions. 

You can use our email template below to send them a message about this issue (and the one above). 

City of Asheville gets a grant to assist in racial equity data collection and analysis

At the most recent Housing and Community Development meeting, Assistant City Manager Rachel Wood announced that the City had received a technical assistance grant from the Public Finance Initiative, which will support their efforts to collect and analyze racial data and better assess progress on equity-related initiatives.

We appreciate City leaders taking the initiative to pursue this support. In the meeting, Ms. Wood referenced the fact that the Cease the Harm Audit named inconsistent racial data collection and analysis as a “key harm,” a point we’ve also been making in our outreach to the County about this issue. We’re glad to see the City taking a tangible step toward remedying this harm. 

Things to do

Join us in reaching out to express appreciation to Assistant City Manager Rachel Wood, Office of Equity and Inclusion Director Sala Menaya-Merritt, and Strategic Services Manager Frank McGowan, all of whom collaborated on the grant, and to Mayor Esther Manheimer for bringing the opportunity to the staff’s attention. 

You can use our email template below to send them a message.