Pictured are the Rev. Gill Ford (in orange -patterned tie), the NAACP's national director of unit field operations and membership , Cleveland NAACP President the Rev. Hilton Smith (in red tie), Cleveland NAACP Executive Director Sheila Wright, and Cleveland Attorney James Hardiman, a former legal director for the Ohio ACLU (in brown turtleneck).

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) /(www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio-The election process for Cleveland NAACP branch officers and executive committee members remains shut down as national NAACP officials, under the leadership of the Rev. Gill Ford, the NAACP's national director of unit field operations and membership, complete an ongoing investigation.

"I have not heard any updates as it relates to the election," said Cleveland NAACP Secretary Arlene Anderson.

"We have to get further direction on how we should proceed and until then there will be no regular meetings," said Anderson.

Before last month's national takeover, the local chapter met the second Monday of each month.

Had the election process not been embarrassingly shutdown, the regular election for two-year terms for various offices, including president, first, second and third vice president, treasurer and secretary, and executive committee members, would have gone forward today, Nov. 10.

At the request of Cleveland NAACP President the Rev. Hilton Smith, and with support from key other branch officers, including first vice president the Rev Dr. E. Theophilus Caviness, second vice president Bishop F.E. Perry and retired  Ohio Eighth District Court of appeals judge and third vice president Sara J. Harper,  the National NAACP  suspended the election process for Cleveland branch officers and executive committee members due in part to documented violations of organizational bylaws by the four-member nominating committee.

Meanwhile, the local chapter of the nation's oldest and most renowned Civil Rights organization is flat broke and has not paid Executive Director Sheila Wright since June, a potential breach of her contract, which expires in January.

One reason for the financial problems, sources said, is that the annual Freedom Fund Dinner that generates revenue, and that was made famous and well-attended by former chapter president George Forbes, Smith's predecessor and a former Cleveland City Council president, was not held this year.

But others say the national Civil Rights trend is changing.

Anderson broke the news about the election shutdown to the general membership in October at what was to be a meeting for the nominating committee to introduce its slate of candidates for offices and the executive committee, and for the group to take nominations from the floor.

At issue is the breach of bylaws relative to a four-member nominating committee for offices when the bylaws require five members, even if somebody quits, as was the case when retired judge Harper , who was the chairperson, quit the committee, though a host of other problems are also key to the national takeover, sources said.

After Harper quit, and because two of the original seven nominating committee members were disqualified because dues had not been paid by April 1, the now defunct nominating committee was reduced to four members, namely  former Cleveland NAACP Executive Director Stanley Miller, who was ousted as executive director under  Forbes, Karen Scott, Will Tarver, and Jocelyn Travis, who lost a bid for branch president against Smith in 2012.

Also at issue is a tug-of-war between Rev. Smith, with support from his ally, Rev., Caviness, the senior pastor and associate minister respectively at Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church in Cleveland, and members of the duo of Michael Nelson and James Hardiman, both of whom are Cleveland criminal defense and constitutional attorneys, and who who represent the local NAACP with permission from the national office.

A former legal director for the Ohio ACLU and  former branch first vice president and former interim president who supported Smith for branch president in 2012, Hardiman was the lead attorney for the NAACP for Black children and their families in the  longstanding Cleveland schools desegregation case of Reed v. Rhodes.

The desegregation court order, however, was dissolved in 1998 when the late federal district court judge George White released the state of Ohio and the school district from under federal court control that initially mandated cross-town busing and staff desegregation, two of the 12 remedial orders in the case.

Over the objections of the NAACP and its lawyers, White, who was Black, ruled that the past vestiges of racial discrimination had been remedied to the extent practicable, and that still existing racial disparities between Black and White children of the Cleveland Municipal School District, now under control of the local mayor, were the result of socioeconomic factors.

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) /(www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)