PRESS STATEMENT
For Immediate Release: Thursday, March 27, 2014Contact: Mr. Gerald Hankerson, President, Washington, Alaska, Oregon State Area Conference NAACP, (206) 249-1786,President.aowsac@gmail.com
Dr. Sheley Secrest, Economic Development Chair, Washington State NAACP,  (253) 468 1247,  seattlenaacpeconomics@gmail.com

“Verification of Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) participation was a concern identified in the FHWA November 2013 Finding.  Today, the NAACP continues to share that concern.  In the past, WSDOT simply took the DBE inclusion numbers at face value with no action to verify the information given. Failure to verify the numbers is what led WSDOT to provide Seattle Tunnel Partners the Diversity and Inclusion Award; and unless they learn from their past mistakes (failing to verify the information), WSDOT will be damned and doomed to repeat them.”  Dr. Sheley Secrest.

"The NAACP believes WSDOT's failure to verify has caused them to error again. Last week, without showing that WSDOT verified theSeattle Tunnel Partners (STP) inclusion target, a new agreement was entered into which removed the previous finding of breach.WSDOT mistakenly celebrates the changes she's made to her agency; not the changes of STP's discriminatory practices. The ‘strides’ she applauds have done nothing to put the original complainants of the FHWA report back to work. Qualified DBE business owners remain on the sidelines looking for STP contracts.” President Gerald Hankerson.Gerald Hankerson, President; and Dr. Sheley Secrest, Chair of Economic Development of the NAACP AOWSAC are available for interviews on the response. See contact information above.

PRESS STATEMENT
For Immediate Release: Tuesday, February 11th
Contact: Gerald Hankerson, president@seattlekingcountynaacp.org, 206-249-1786


Seattle, WA -- Earlier today, Governor Jay Inslee announced that he is calling a moratorium on executions while he is office. Gerald Hankerson, the President of the Alaska, Oregon, and Washington State Area Conference of the NAACP, released the following statement in response:

“The NAACP is pleased with the Governor's courageous action of suspending the death penalty for Washington's inmates. This announcement marks an important step forward for Washington, and is a victory for the African American community. Nowhere are disparities between black and white inmates in criminal justice more apparent than in sentences deciding who lives and who dies. African American residents are disproportionately represented on death row, and our state is more likely to impose the death penalty on African American defendants than white defendants convicted of the same crime. 

On behalf of the NAACP for the state of Washington and our community, I would like to thank Governor Inslee for halting executions in our state while he is in office. This is a bold step in the right direction and we appreciate his leadership. We won’t stop fighting until the death penalty is abolished in Washington, and we finally put an end to this inequitable law.”