{"id":8075,"date":"2013-10-08T09:17:23","date_gmt":"2013-10-08T13:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=8075"},"modified":"2013-10-08T14:01:50","modified_gmt":"2013-10-08T18:01:50","slug":"naacp-chapter-claims-conflict-of-interest-for-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=8075","title":{"rendered":"NAACP chapter claims conflict of interest for president"},"content":{"rendered":"

Members ask Dr. Taylor to step aside for matters related to CASD<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

By Kyle Carrozza<\/strong><\/span>, Staff Writer, The Times<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Image2-300x220\"<\/a>COATESVILLE \u2013 NAACP members called for Coatesville Area NAACP Chapter President Dr. Tonya Thames Taylor to recuse herself at the NAACP general meeting Monday night at City Hall, suggesting that her role as a school board member has prevented her from taking actions in the best interests of the NAACP – an accusation she denies.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly there\u2019s a conflict she [President Taylor] has with the school board issue. She\u2019s a school board member. She\u2019s an NAACP member,\u201d said member Jerry Hannah. \u201cIt\u2019s just a conflict, a conflict she has not recognized.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many in attendance asked that Taylor step aside and allow Vice President John \u201cHank\u201d Hamilton to handle proceedings that deal with the recent controversies stemming from the discovery of racist, sexist text messages between CASD Superintendent Richard Como and Athletic Director James Donato, both of whom resigned. Because the request concerning Taylor did not make the NAACP agenda before the meeting, no motion was entertained.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe school board dropped the ball. The NAACP didn\u2019t come out and fight for it. We haven\u2019t heard a peep,\u201d said member Alphonso Newsuan.<\/p>\n

Taylor defended her course of action.\u00a0\u201cYou asked me what I would have done, I would have done nothing differently,\u201d she responded to a member who asked how she would have handled the situation if she weren’t on the school board.<\/p>\n

She also said NAACP members have not taken official steps to take action against the school board.\u00a0\u201cYou must come forward with a complaint,\u201d she said. \u201cAs a board member of the Coatesville Area School District, on the 18th of August, I got an e-mail from a Leroy Coates. An e-mail does not constitute a complaint, nor does it constitute validity. The president of the NAACP, the only thing I do is give a complaint a number; I do nothing else.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said that in order to take action against the school board, a member would have to submit an official notarized complaint, which would subsequently be reviewed for validity by the NAACP.<\/p>\n

NAACP Philadelphia Branch President Jerry Mondesire, who also attended, said that Taylor is not serving under a conflict of interest.\u00a0\u201cShe hasn\u2019t done anything to disturb the process that has already begun,\u201d said Mondesire, who asked residents to bring their complaints to the public hearing on Oct. 15.<\/p>\n

Dr. Teresa Powell, also in attendance, said that she plans on taking advantage of the public hearing and will attend with \u00a0Abdallah Hawa. It was Powell and Hawa who brought the offensive texts to the attention of the school board. “We thought we\u2019d said plenty two weeks ago, but we have tons more, and we\u2019re going to bring evidence with us so that everyone can see it,\u201d Powell \u00a0said.<\/p>\n

Mondesire went on to say that Taylor did not send the text messages, and members\u2019 anger was being directed at the wrong person.\u00a0\u201cDid she [President Taylor] do the texting? When all the evidence comes out, that\u2019s when it\u2019s time to make a judgment about the leadership of the NAACP. So you jump ahead before the evidence is heard, then you\u2019re making a rush to judge,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The dissent came from not just members, but at least one board member as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want it to be misunderstood to think that Dr. Taylor\u2019s being attacked because she\u2019s a black woman. No, that\u2019s not the case. I\u2019ll defend her as a black woman. But I do want it to be known that the issue isn\u2019t as much with her as it is with the [Coatesville Area School] Board and because you\u2019re wearing a board member hat,\u201d said Treasurer Linda Lavender Norris.<\/p>\n

Hearings with members from the NAACP, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department, and community members will take place Oct. 15 at Second Baptist Church where all members of the public will be allowed to speak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Members ask Dr. Taylor to step aside for matters related to CASD By Kyle Carrozza, Staff Writer, The Times COATESVILLE \u2013 NAACP members called for Coatesville Area NAACP Chapter President Dr. Tonya Thames Taylor to recuse herself at the NAACP general meeting Monday night at City Hall, suggesting that her role as a school board […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[2763,1328,2797,362,2916],"class_list":["post-8075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-uncategorized","tag-casd","tag-coatesville-area-naacp","tag-james-donato","tag-richard-como","tag-vice-president-john-hank-hamilton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}