LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The Louisville NAACP is vacating its board seat on the West End Opportunity Partnership, the state-created agency charged with investing tax revenue in the city's western neighborhoods.
The decision announced Tuesday caps a monthlong dispute between the civil rights organization and partnership leaders, who successfully lobbied the Kentucky General Assembly to intervene and pass legislation strengthening board appointment rules.
"We find the total disregard for the NAACP, its policies, and its positions so reprehensible that we can not work with and be a part of an organization whose governance and board control are questionable and by its actions thinks so little of the NAACP," Raoul Cunningham, president of the local branch, said in a statement.
The rift stems from a policy approved by the partnership board last year that requires the NAACP and six other entities with seats to provide more than one candidate when vacancies occur. But the civil rights group has refused to provide multiple candidates for its representative's seat since the bylaws were approved last September.
"As a renowned and esteemed civil rights organization, their involvement on our board was highly valued, Laura Douglas, the partnership's interim president and CEO, said in a statement. "We respect the NAACP's decision to depart from The Partnership's board, opting not to fulfill this essential duty."
She said a new organization will have a member appointed to the seat.
Cunningham told WDRB News earlier this year that the NAACP refused to comply with the nomination policy because partnership staff asked him not to reappoint his group's member, Jeana Dunlap.
The tax increment financing district in Louisville's West End covers more than 12 square miles, making it the largest in Kentucky.
Cunningham said Douglas asked him in October 2022 not to reappoint Dunlap, a board member since state legislators established the partnership in 2021. Dunlap is a former director of redevelopment strategies for Metro government, a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and an urban planning and design lecturer at the university's Bloomberg Center for Cities.
Cunningham said Douglas told him that Dunlap had been "disruptive." Douglas has declined to discuss her conversation with Cunningham but has not disputed his account.
The bill approved by state lawmakers lets the partnership board replace members who don't follow the nomination rules. Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed the measure, saying it could allow "outside influencers or organizations to take control of the board."
The General Assembly later voted to override the veto.
Among those voting against the bill was Sen. Gerald Neal (D-Louisville), an advocate of the partnership who helped shepherd through the initial legislation in 2021.
Dunlap's seat on the board was up for renewal.
Jennifer Hancock, the chair of the partnership's board development committee, said at a May 28 full board meeting that she'd hoped that the NAACP keep its position as a board member.
"I just want you all to know that I communicated explicitly to Mr. Cunningham that it is our goal that the NAACP preserve their seat on this board," she said.
A bill passed in 2023 lets the partnership select replacements for board members who are "unable or unwilling to serve." The replacement member must be from an entity in the West End or have a "history of service" to the area.
The partnership will oversee spending revenue from a tax increment financing (TIF) district in a 12-square-mile area across nine neighborhoods. For 20 years, a portion of tax money generated there would be diverted from government coffers and invested in yet-to-be-determined projects.
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