Mayor's new Racial Equity Initiative executive director targeted for investigation

File this under "No One Is Surprised"

Vi Lyles:

“I wanted to say clearly, that I, nor the Charlotte City Council or any councilmember, had any role in the hiring of the Alliance staff. And the Alliance statement has been made. It’s available to both the media and the public. And I would expect that any questions regarding that item should be referred to the Alliance for their comment. So, I just wanted to make sure that everyone was aware, because we’ve gotten some inquiries about that. The Charlotte Alliance announced Henderson will be the executive director of the Employer Office of Inclusion and Advancement within the Mayor’s Racial Equity Initiative."

Kim Henderson

“I was aware that the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, formerly led by Kim Henderson, was the subject of a now-completed audit and request for investigation dating back to May 2021. I factored this into consideration, as well as her capabilities for the role of executive director of the Employer Office of Inclusion and Advancement, and I made the decision to hire her. The Employer Office of Inclusion and Advancement is one of four priorities comprising the Mayor’s Racial Equity Initiative, the implementation and efficacy of which will be supervised by two oversight boards. There is tremendous work to be done for our community, and we’re ready to get going.”

At this point no one has been criminally implicated including Ms. Henderson. But what is clear is that during Henderson's tenure the department she ran may have allowed 3.8 Billon dollars to be lost to fraud and outright theft. 

She previously led the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services a job that Henderson stepped down as director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services in March. In the months since then, an Ohio state audit identified a "lack of controls" within that agency that resulted in $3.8 billion worth of unemployment fraud and overpayments during the pandemic. 

MREI co-chairs Malcomb Coley and Janet LaBar are two Charlotte business leaders heading the project.

Malcomb Coley

Janet LaBar

But what is really going on here? Why hire anyone with a "cloud" of impropriety or mismanagement? Furthermore Henderson has zero experience in fund raising, just apparently wasteful spending so why hire her? The answer is clear she's a person of color and that fits the agenda.

This is neither about equality or hiring the best person for the job regardless of skin color.

$250,000,000.00 isn't a lot of money, and MREI has more chairs than a southern tent reveille meeting in July. The Federal seed money has for "infrastructure" the Charlotte companies contributing to the fund did so only to hang their hats on "equity" and not equality.

So how much is $250 million? Enough to widen 485 from one end to the other adding an additional lane in each direction. That's infrastructure that equally benefits all.