Part 4: Affirmative Action is no “Action Jackson” at MnDOT
By Donald W.R. Allen,II – Editor in Chief/IBNN and USA Radical Black
Last week at MnDOT and internal email was sent to select employees at MnDOT regarding the recent stories posted on IBNN.
The email read: (Unedited):
From: Prescott, Mary (DOT)
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 10:47 AM
Re: Part 3 – Who signs off on 0% goals and 0% goals achieved at MnDOT?
FYI for internal use only – this will be discussed at the DBE and Workforce Development Collaborative Group meeting on Friday. Specifically, hopefully, 1) Lennie Chism bringing Donny Allen a newsperson who seemed only there looking for a story and he did not state that this is why he was there; and 2) it was agreed to “no surprises” at the last meeting and this has been the fourth surprise from Mr. Chism; ground roles for media and the hard work going forth with all the project teams.
Note: The email above is just another example of bigotry at MnDOT for the acting civil rights director to single out two Black men, asking questions about a 17 year trend of failure in an attempt to address, solve and recommend a plan of action. This top-of-mind attention is not wanted at MnDOT, hence, 1% in federally funded contracts to minority contractors.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation employee base is a “protected class” of the government workforce. They have the “Cadillac” of benefits that aren’t affected by the current economic status of non-government working-class Minnesotans. Read more
ACORN considered name change – how about NROCA (Nationwide Republican Opportunity Council of America)?
Editors note: The Nationwide Republican Opportunity Council of America? (ACORN spelled backwards), was founded in 2009 as an activist organization to deliver information about voting and to do outreach with full disclosure and transparency – something the Democratic Party has forgotten about. To find out more information click here.
The original title to this article is: ACORN considered name change…
By JAKE SHERMAN | Origianally Posted at POLITICO
ACORN has been tripped up by voter registration fraud allegations and an undercover investigation which had its employees offering advice on how to set up a brothel and evade taxes.
ACORN, the troubled community service organization, recently considered changing its name in a bid to rehabilitate its image, according to an internal memo obtained by POLITICO.
The document, which will be released Tuesday as part of a Republican congressional forum on ACORN, illustrates the internal deliberation the group has undergone after a year of embarrassing scandals.
The document was found in Dumpster outside of an ACORN office in San Diego, a House Republican aide said. Derrick Roach, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for statehouse in California, took thousands of documents last week from the trash outside the office. An ACORN spokesman confirmed the veracity of the document.
ACORN has been tripped up by voter registration fraud allegations and an undercover investigation which had its employees offering advice on how to set up a brothel and evade taxes. Congress passed, and President Barack Obama signed, a law that cut off much of the organization’s federal funding.
“Our members are having a vigorous discussion about how to move forward most effectively to help working families win living wage jobs, stop foreclosures, and strengthen neighborhoods,” ACORN spokesman Scott Levenson said in a response to inquiries from POLITICO.
In an emailed statement, Levenson brushed off Tuesday’s Republican hearing.
“We believe their time would be better spent solving, as ACORN is doing, the foreclosure crisis,” Levenson said.
The memo addresses, in bullet-point format, the pros and cons of a new brand, saying that it has “spent 39 years building the reputation and track record of ACORN.” ACORN officials write that the bad image would “blow over” in the next year or two. And they believe that even with a name change, “right-wing attackers will say we are ACORN in disguise – so do we really gain much by going with a new name?”
The group does acknowledge that working with elected officials “is much harder now” and “while some foundations are still will to fund us, more are not.”
The one-page document also discusses the optics of a name change, saying it “should be very obvious that we are not going to choose a new name because funders or politicians want us to.”
The memo also acknowledges that it has encountered organizations and individuals who want to work with group but “can only do so if [ACORN changes] its name.”
“(We) should probably think through this problem carefully and figure out what it all means for our ability to survive and thrive without losing a lot of ground over the next year or two,” the memo reads.
This week, Republican Reps. Darrell Issa of California and Lamar Smith of Texas are holding a forum on the ACORN, which will include state government officials and a former ACORN employee.
“The more we learn about the inner-working of ACORN and its affiliates, the more apparent it becomes that this organization is intentionally structured to deceive and mislead the American people,” Issa said in an emailed statement.
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