Mooresville town hall examines concerns over diversity

MOORESVILLE, N.C. — The investigation into Mooresville's Police Department has sparked conversations about race.

[At a Glance: Mooresville diversity]

Earlier this month, leaders put Chief Damon Williams on administrative leave with pay while they investigate claims of a hostile work environment. Some community members worry that Williams, the town's first black chief, is being targeted.

Channel 9’s team has been digging through thousands of emails and that learned before the investigation started, the town had already started working to address racial tension within its ranks.

Commissioner Thurman Houston said people in the town should stop being afraid to talk about race. He has spent his entire life in Mooresville. He’s lived there 67 years and served 13 years as a commissioner.

As a student, he went through desegregation and said that since then, he hasn't seen the progress he'd hoped to see in some areas.

“It’s a little bit more harder right now to accept because I’ve had some issues in the last six months that I did here in the '70s,” Houston said.

It's part of why he's pushed for the town to take a deep look at how inclusive it is, or not. Channel 9 dug through a preliminary report we uncovered from consultants at Visions Inc.

The town is paying the company $80,000 a year for four years to assess employees’ experiences. They interviewed 127 employees and found several themes that overall,

many feel the town has been making an effort to support diversity. But employees also said there is still a perceived "old boys’ network” and that information on promotions is not shared equally.

Channel 9 discussed the preliminary findings with Houston outside of town hall.

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“That’s one of the biggest concerns I have is how we move people through the ranks,” Houston said.

Some employees also said that some departments remain segregated by gender and race.

One of the concerns in the report is that they only have materials written in English, but Channel 9 anchor Brittney Johnson checked town hall and found several brochures written in English and Spanish.​

Leaders said some of the survey comments may not be truly accurate, but if they reflect an employee’s perception of the town, they want to talk about and address it.

“Conversation, communication, I think we’re lacking that in the town of Mooresville,” Houston said.

Cox Media Group