Cap Metro Board Member Resigns After Critical Remarks On Austin Race Relations

AUSTIN, TX — Capital Metro board member Beverly Silas resigned on Tuesday afternoon in the wake of controversial remarks she previously made about her not wanting to hire an African American to lead the transit agency given the city's shortcomings in race relations, according to a published report.

Silas announced her resignation during the Travis County Commissioners Court meeting. As previously reported by the Austin American-Statesman, Silas sparked a firestorm after saying she wouldn't hire an African American to lead the transit agency "because of where Austin is" regarding race relations.

“I do not want to harm the agency in its search for a new CEO or make it more difficult for Capital Metro to move forward,” Silas told members of the commissioners court, which appointed her to the eight-member transit board during the time she as vice chair. “I most humbly apologize to the community, to you, the Travis County Commissioners Court, the Capital Metro board, and to the entire Capital Metro organization for my words. They did not reflect what was and is in my heart.”

An African American herself, Silas later clarified her remarks to the Statesman. She said she only meant to raise concerns about the perceived environment in Austin that limits upward progression for the population segment. She told the newspaper she didn't mean to suggest she would oppose selecting an African American person to replace agency CEO and President Linda Watson, who's set to retire in December.

“What my heart was saying last month is both obvious and too easily forgotten: It is hard being African-American in Austin,” Silas wrote in a commentary submitted in late September to the Statesman. “Sometimes, we become invisible. At others, we may be criticized before we get off the plane to simply start a new job — just ask Charlie Strong.”

The latter reference was to the former University of Texas football coach who headed the team from 2014 to 2016, who had to endure pejorative remarks from by prominent Longhorns booster and university benefactor Red McCombs, who said publicly that Strong, an African American, would be a good assistant coach but in his estimation not qualified for the top coaching job.

"I think the whole thing is a bit sideways," San Antonio businessman McCombs said of Strong's hiring as Longhorns head coach in a 2014 interview with ESPN. "I don't have any doubt that Charlie is a fine coach. I think he would make a great position coach, maybe a coordinator. But I don't believe [he belongs at] what should be one of the three most powerful university programs in the world right now at UT-Austin. I don't think it adds up."

Strong was the first African American to secure the head coaching job at UT-Austin before a losing final season led to his ouster last year. McCombs later apologized for his comments, which were deemed by many as racially insensitive.

The remarks that got Silas in hot water came during an Aug. 9 Cap Metro board discussion related to hiring the new agency head. She recalled a conversation she had with somebody else on the hiring search, as the Statesman reported.

“One of the things I told him was that I would be definitely opposed to an African-American male coming into this role,” Silas said at the August meeting, "And he looked at me and said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Because Austin is not the place for them. They would have a very difficult time. I would also be hesitant for an African-American female, not as much as a male. But they’re going to have a hard time here in the city just because of where Austin is, period.’ ”

Those sentiments opened the floodgates of criticism. County Commissioner Brigid Shea was the first to hint whether Silas should resign for what was largely perceived as, at the very least, an inelegant expression. Nelson Linder, longtime president of the Austin NAACP, ticked off a list of prominent African Americans who've held key posts in Austin: Marc Ott, who was Austin city manager for eight years; Sam Biscoe, a Travis County judge for 16 years; Greg Hamilton, former Travis County sheriff for eight years; Maria Carstarphen, the former head of the Austin school district for five years; Ashby Johnson, executive director of the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization since 2014.

Silas's remarks effectively put an end to a seven-year board tenure since being appointed in 2010. It was just last September that officials lauded the public relations specialist's appointment as member at-large of the executive committee of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) for 2016-2017. The APTA executive committee is elected by the organization's members and is charged with acting on behalf of the board of directors when the full board is not in session, officials noted at the time.

At the time of that prominent appointment, Silas was deemed as an "indispensable" voice in a Capital Metro news advisory.

“Beverly Silas has been an indispensable source of advice and counsel in her years serving Capital Metro,” Capital Metro President/CEO Watson said at the time, in a prepared statement. “Her experience and knowledge are sure to be beneficial to APTA, as well.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, Silas's photo had already been scrubbed from the Cap Metro website. Patch requested the official photo of Silas used by Cap Metro to accompany this story given its immediate removal from the Cap Metro website.

Beverly Silas earned a bachelor's degree in public management from Huston-Tillotson University, a historically black university in Austin. She later earned a master's degree from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.

>>> Read the full story at Austin American-Statesman

Photo of Beverly Silas provided by Capital Metro