The former Albany NAACP President says there need to be more African-American owned businesses downtown, expansion of area boundaries
ALBANY, GA -- The former NAACP Albany Chapter President spoke as a representative of the group at today’s Albany-Dougherty Inner City Authority meeting, saying downtown isn’t representing the city’s demographic.
William Wright spoke to the Albany-Dougherty Inner City Authority about expanding the boundaries of downtown and the Tax Allocation District to include the Harlem District.
“Not only TAD but the boundary for ADICA is too limited given the demographic of this community. We're saying there's a way to look further south and further west,” says Wright.
He also says more African-American owned businesses should be established downtown.
Downtown Manager Aaron Blair says the boundaries from the TAD and downtown do include the Harlem District and that there are big downtown projects, like Oglethorpe Crossing, that are managed by African-Americans.
As for the new construction and remodeling projects downtown, Wright says they should hire contractors that are minorities.
“The demographic of this community is 75 to 80 percent black, and therefore, those are all of the people paying taxes on this money,” says Wright. “There ought to be some return on that money, and we're looking at coming up with a program that was done 20, 25 years ago.”
Blair says ADICA does not have control over hiring new contractors.
ADICA and Wright agreed to discuss the issue again when Wright brings documents to board members to review.
Wright says although he was removed as the NAACP Albany Chapter President, he still wants to represent them at meetings like ADICA.
Also at tonight’s ADICA meeting, Blair says he wants to start showing the city that ADICA cares about what the community wants and needs. He says they’re also working on Downtown Albany items for citizens to buy like tote bags and coozies to show support for the area.
Blair says they’re planning on adding bike racks and rental bikes downtown as well as more trash cans.
ADICA announced that the alteration store Gabe’s is opening April 16 and retail store Global Essence is opening on April 30.
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