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King Commission selects new executive director Friday, Feb 15, 2008 By Rob Moritz Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - After more than a year of rancor, the Arkansas Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commission voted Thursday to name the former director of a Florida nonprofit as its executive director. The commission voted 12-5 to name DuShun Scarbrough to replace state Sen. Tracy Steele, D-North Little Rock, who resigned in November 2006 after serving 12 years as the commission's first chairman since its inception in 1994. "It's time to move forward," former state Rep. Booker Clemmons of Pine Bluff, a commission member, said after Thursday's meeting. "Everything behind us is negative. Let's move to the positive." The controversy surrounding the commission continues, however. A lawsuit challenging the legitimacy of some commission appointees is still pending in circuit court. Also, after Thursday's vote, co-chairman Odies Wilson of Little Rock, who supported another candidate for the director's job, said he would seek an attorney general's opinion on whether Scarbrough's selection was proper. Eighteen of the 26 members of the commission attended Thursday's meeting at the state Capitol. "It's my understanding of the rules of this board that it takes a minimum of 14, which is majority of the board, to officially tender an offer to a person," Wilson said. He said he would support the new executive director if an attorney general's opinion affirms the vote. The vote on hiring a permanent executive director came as a surprise to many commissioners, and to Scarbrough, who sat in the audience during the meeting. Scarbrough said after the meeting that knew he was a finalist for the job, but was not aware s decision would be made Thursday. Co-chairman John Walker of Little Rock, who asked that the commission go into executive session and then announced publicly there would be a vote, left the meeting quickly after it ended and did not immediately return a call seeking comment later Thursday. "I think there were some members that knew they were going to make it an issue ... and some members that didn't," Wilson said, adding he didn't know they commission planned to vote Thursday. The commission has been mired in turmoil for months in questions about its makeup and whether some members were legitimately appointed to the panel. Some meetings had to be scrapped because not enough members showed up to conduct business. The rancor and legal action has delayed some new appointments, including six by Gov. Mike Beebe, whose spokesman said the governor would not act until litigation over some current members is resolved. No hearing date has been set in commissioner Jimmy C. Morris Jr.'s lawsuit in Pulaski County Circuit Court. Scarbrough and interim director Jerelyn Duncan, who has worked at the commission since 1999, were the two finalists for the executive director's job. After Scarbrough was elected, Walker said the commission hoped Duncan could continue to work at her previous position as chief financial officer. Scarbrough, 33, is an Arkansas native who graduated from the Little Rock School District and Philander Smith College. He said he earned a master's degree in business administration from Webster University and a master's in counseling education from Florida A&M. Before moving back to Little Rock, he was director of a nonprofit group that worked with disabled individuals in Tallahassee, Fla. "I really thank and appreciate the commission for having such supreme confidence in me," Scarbrough told the commissioners. |
