Woodfin to neighborhood leaders: We want to partner with you
By Edward T. Bowser
Mayor Randall Woodfin pledged to work alongside neighborhood leaders in an effort to create better efficiency and trim red tape during a gathering of Southern mayors at the Neighborhoods USA conference.
Woodfin, Mayor LaToya Cantrell of New Orleans and Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba of Jackson, Miss., addressed key issues affecting their neighborhoods — including crime, poverty and social justice — during a panel and press conference at NUSA, a national gathering of neighborhood leaders.
“We find ourselves inheriting things, being newly elected,” Woodfin said. “And one of the things we find is that government isn’t always efficient.”
“We (currently) have a 17-step process to get to cutting a check for residents to able to draw from their funds,” he added. “That is crazy.”
Woodfin plans to implement a smoother process for neighborhoods to access funding before the end of the year.
“We’re not doing 17 steps,” he said. “I don’t care what it takes to cut down that type of red tape.” In the meantime, Woodfin plans to funnel funds directly to projects that neighborhood leaders have indicated are the top priorities in their areas.
The spirit of more efficient, unified neighborhoods was at the forefront of a morning panel discussion, led by DeJuana Thompson, co-founder and partner of Think Rubix strategy firm.
Lumumba said that neighborhoods are “the central processing units of our cities” and that while neighborhood leaders might not be experts in legalities, “people are experts in their condition,” and that their voices must be heard in shaping policy.
“We have to be as radical as the circumstances dictate we should be,” he said. “We have to find that integrity in ourselves and change the world where we stand.”
Neighborhood leaders “put in a massive amount of sweat equity,” Woodfin said. “They are people whose passion for their neighborhoods is higher than some elected officials.”
As Cantrell put it, communities “see themselves in the people who serve them.”
Woodfin also noted that he is a few weeks away from hiring a LGBTQ liaison, as well as closing in on the creation of the Mayor’s Office of Social Justice and Racial Equity, which aims to uphold Birmingham’s legacy of equality.
“Our city was the poster child for racial oppression and became the cradle of the civil-rights movement,” he said. “We’re known for resisting injustice while fighting for change.”
More than 1,000 people from across the nation are meeting in Birmingham this week for 43rd annual NUSA conference, a national nonprofit committed to strengthening neighborhood organizations. This year’s event marks the third time that Birmingham is hosting NUSA, more than any other city in the conference’s history.
