Dialogue on race to cost $30,000

The consultant with the winning bid to facilitate Charlottesville’s dialogue on race has offered to do the job for roughly $30,000, according to city officials.

G. Whiting & Associates, based out of Chester and headed by Gwendolyn Whiting, was chosen by the city to run the dialogue and train those who will be leading the discussions about racism and discrimination. Assistant City Manager Maurice Jones, charged with developing the initiative, said Whiting’s bid was slightly more than $30,000, the lowest amount of the final three firms interviewed for the job. A contract has not yet been signed, he said.

“In general, we’re pleased to be able to award a contract to someone like Gwen,” Jones said. “We look forward to working with her.”

Whiting did not return phone calls seeking comment.

According to her Web site, Whiting has done consulting services for more than 15 years and specializes in ventures such as diversity and racialequity, mediation and cross-cultural conflict resolution. Past clients include the Pew Partnership for Civic Change, the American Association of Retired Persons, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the White House Task Force on Racism, Discrimination and Xenophobia.

Charlottesville officials are attempting to start a sustainable dialogue on race relations that will address current racial tensions and those created over the years from various events. Those include the city’s role in Massive Resistance to stop racial integration of its schools and the razing of the predominately black Vinegar Hill neighborhood — which sent many residents into Westhaven, Charlottesville’s first and largest public housing site — in the name of urban renewal.

The hope is to come up with an action plan to move beyond the racial and discrimination issues some city residents face.

“By success, we’re looking at two, three, four, five years,” said Bob Gross, a member of the dialogue’s steering committee who interviewed Whiting. “The discussions are only the first part.”

Jones first presented the plan for the dialogue to the City Council — which identified race relations as a priority last year — in January, when it was approved. Similar programs have been instituted in Richmond; Lynchburg; Dayton, Ohio; and Little Rock, Ark.

The city budgeted $10,000 in fiscal 2009 and $50,000 in the current fiscal year for the dialogue, but Jones said that very little of that money has been spent.

Plans for the Charlottesville dialogue say that it will consist of a series of study circles, where a diverse group of 10 to 15 people would begin discussions about racial tension to identify the issues that exist in the city. A facilitator — local volunteers trained by Whiting’s firm — would moderate each group.

Councilor Holly Edwards, who is also the co-chairwoman of the steering committee, said Whiting has direct experience with what Charlottesville is trying to do.

“She had had experience with study circles in other areas,” Edwards said. She added that Whiting showed she would be flexible enough in adapting to the city’s unique needs and its history of race relations.

“Even though the model came from the Lynchburg experience, we’re not Lynchburg,” Edwards said.

City Council candidate Bob Fenwick, an independent, said initiatives like the dialogue are beneficial because they could bring the community together. If the dialogue’s facilitator is top-notch, Fenwick said he would not have an objection, but bringing an outside consultant in is not always the best way.

“The consultant thing is too often the default position when there are other things right under our nose that will work better,” Fenwick said.

Fenwick said that a program like Meet Your Neighbor, spearheaded by the Hope Community Center’s Josh Bare, was a successful private initiative that brought city residents together at no cost to the government.

“That’s how I would approach this, to encourage those kinds of things,” he said.

Jones said the kickoff event for the dialogue is being planned for early December, though an exact date has not been nailed down.

“We are moving along at a pretty good clip right now,” Jones said.