Where everybody knew your name: ‘Jook Joint’ exhibit opens/IB
a Cljarlotte B
VOLUME 21 NO. 33
MAY 2,1996
75 CENTS
NationsBank buys City View apartments
Purchase is part of bank’s plan to remake
First Ward into mixed-income community
By John Minter
THE CHARLOTTE POST
Hugh McColl’s vow to
remake First Ward moved for
ward a bit with NationsBank’s
recent purchase, for $400,000,
of the aging City View apart
ments adjacent to Brookshire
Freeway.
McColl, NationsBank CEO,
said Tuesday he wants to turn
Earle Village and all of First
Ward into a mixed-income
neighborhood with thousands
of new homes, apartments and
shops.
The 48-unit City View com
plex, sited on 2,2 acres, will be
razed and the land held for
redevelopment later, said
NationsBank spokesman Jan
Boylston. Many of the City
View units are empty, their
windows boarded.
The purchase is in line with
the bank’s aid of the Charlotte
Housing Authority’s renewal
project in the 430-unit Earle
Village public housing com
plex, Earle Village is being
downsized by nearly 50 per
cent, with nearly 100 units
being reserved for senior citi
zens and participants in a
self-sufficiency program lead
ing to home ownership.
The complex will shrink to a
small area at the intersection
of Seventh and Davidson
streets. The housing authority
hopes to sell or lease the
vacated acreage for additional
low- to moderate-income hous
ing.
The authority will spend $41
million in federal dollars on
the project, called Hope VI,
which includes an economic
development component and
the self-sufficiency program’s
counseling and training com
ponents.
However, city officials are
considering a plan to redevel
op the entire First Ward area,
a mammoth effort, that would
involve public and private
partnership. NationsBank is
positioned to be the major
player, via its involvement
with the housing authority
project and its previous com
munity development efforts in
Fourth and Third wards and
in the uptown center city.
“There’s a plan before the
planning commission that will
go before the city council,”
Boylston said. “That is the
definitive redevelopment
plan.”
See NATIONSBANK on 2A
Achievement is top priority
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PHOTO/OALVIN FERGUSON
By John Minter
THE CHARLOTTE POST
Kenneth Burnley (right), a candidate for the vacant Charlotte-Mecklenburg school superintendent’s job, toured the dis
trict as part of his Interview. He met with West Charlotte High School principal Kenneth Simmons Monday on the Senior
Drive campus. Burnley, superintendent in Colorado Springs, Colo., is the only African American among four finalists.
Superintendent finalist focuses on results
dominantly African American.
Burnley said his focus is student
achievement. “You have to be student
focused,” he said. “You can’t lose sight
of that.”
His tenure in Colorado Springs
School District No. 11 has been
marked by household visits by he and
his staff to improve the public’s per
ception of the public school system,
Burnley said.
He said the system hired marketing
consultants to discuss v/ays to deal
with what he called public misconcep
tions about how well the schools are
Kenneth Burnley compared the
process of interviewing for Charlotte-
Mecklenburg school superintendent to
getting married.
“It was a serious meeting” with
school board members, Burnley told
reporters at a brief press conference.
Burnley, from Colorado Springs,
Colo., is the lone African American
among four candidates who visited
Charlotte this week. The board hopes
to pick one of them by June to replace
John Murphy, who resigned in
November.
Other candidates include Eric Smith
of Newport News, Va., Patrick J.
Russo of Savannah, Ga., and Cheryl
Wilhoyte of Madison, Wis.
All expressed interest in the
Charlotte position and positive feel
ings toward the community. They also
talked about student achievement and
discipline, key areas high on the list of
concerns by Charlotte parents and
officials.
Another challenge for the incoming
superintendent will be maintaining
an integrated school system, while the
county grows rapidly outward, leaving
a stagnant inner city, which is pre-
See BURNLEY on page 2A
Gantt-Sanders
tops primary
election slate
By John Minter
THE CHARLOTTE POST
Under a barrage of political missiles tossed about in the Harvey
Gantt-Charlie Sanders race for the Democratic nomination for
U.S. Senate, other primary races will be decided
Tuesday.
Vilma Leake, a longtime Charlotte-
Mecklenburg school teacher, is making an at-
large run for the Mecklenburg County Board of
County Commissioners.
Also on Tuesday’s primary ballot is the
intense, if quiet, contest between longtime
friends Hoyle Martin and Sarah Stevenson in
the County Commissioners District 2 race.
Stevenson, a former school board member,
announced and filed first. Martin, who lost the
mayoral race last year to Republican Pat
McCrory, soon followed. Stevenson’s been endorsed by the Black
Political Caucus and The Charlotte Observer, while Martin, a for
mer Charlotte city council member, has the backing of the
Westside Political Action ' ■I’nimittee.
In other endorsements, the Black Political Caucus endorsed
Gantt in the Senate primary contest with retired Glaxo executive
Sanders for the chance to face Republican incumbent Jesse
Helms in November.
In other Democratic primary races, the Caucus endorsed Harry
Payne Jr. for labor commissioner, Valeria Lee for secretary of
state, Michael Weisel for treasurer and Linda McGee for the
See PRIMARY on page 3A
Gantt
Valeria Lee runs for a piece of
history, N.C. secretary of state
By Herbert L. White
THE CHARLOTTE POST
Auditor Ralph Campbell was
the first.
Valeria Lee says she isn't
campaigning for a piece of his
tory.
But winning the May 7
Democratic primary for N.C.
secretary of state would move
her a step closer to it.
Lee, who's on leave from the
Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation
where she’s program officer, is
trying to become the first
African American woman to
be nominated for a statewide
office. If she wins next week,
Lee could wind up facing stock
car racing legend Richard
Petty in a battle to become
only the second black to take a
seat on the Council of State.
Le«
Diverse group join hands to refurbish Grier Heights’ Rosenwald School
elected in
1992. She
would also be
just the third
person to hold
the job in the
last 60 years,
following the
legendary
Thad Eure
and Rufus
Edmisten,
who stepped down earlier this
year after allegations of fiscal
mismanagement and crony
ism were made public.
"I'm aware (of the historical
implications)," she said. "If
you are at all attuned to histo
ry and the role we play.
See LEE on page 3A
By John Minter
THE CHARLOTTE POST
More than 70 years ago,
Edward Wallace helped build
a brick schoolhouse for
African American children in
what’s now Grier Heights.
Now his grandson, George
Wallace, is part of an effort to
renovate and re-use the 3,000-
square-feet structure now on
the Billingsville Elementary
School campus. The building
will be used as a community
center, Wallace said.
Edward Wallace, a concrete
contractor, joined with Sam
Billings, Arthur Grier, Booker
T. Washington and Jewish
philanthropist Julius
Rosenwald in the $10,000 pro
ject to build the original
Billingsville schoolhouse in
the early 1920s.
Wallace gave money to help-
match Rosenwald’s grant for
!
Billingsville school, one of'
more than 5,300 aided by
Rosenwald’s gargantuan effort
to build schools for African
American children in the
south.
Billings, a landowner and
farmer, donated the land.
Rosenwald gave money which
was matched by residents of
the Billingsville community
and the state to build the
3,000-square-foot brick school-
house.
Rosenwald’s grandson, Peter
Ascoli of Chicago, visited the
old schoolhouse last week to
mark the partnership of
Temple Beth El congregation
with the Grier Height’s resi
dents in neighborhood revital
ization efforts.
The building was used up
until about five or six years
ago, according to Wallace,
executive director of the Grier
Heights Economic
Foundation. The foundation,
started in 1985, is a communi
ty development corporation,
similar to but older than the
Reid Park and Northwest
Corridor community develop
ment corporations, Wallace
said.
The renovation of
Billingsville is being financed
with a $25,000 grant from the
City of Charlotte and match
ing labor and materials and
other in-kind help, including
volunteers from Temple Beth
El.
“When we move in, it will be
used exclusively as a commu
nity service center,” said
Wallace, who has lived in
Grier Heights all his life.
He was board chair of the
community’s economic devel
opment organization before
becoming executive director
See SCHOOL on page 2A
PHOTO/PGALVIN FERGUSON
George Wallace, grandson of one of the builders of a
Rosenwald School In Grier Heights, is helping with efforts to
turn the site into a community center. Temple Bethel El is form
ing a partnership with the community to help out.
Inside
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