She'll preside over a merger of the Affirmative Action Department and Equal Opportunities Commission, into what Mayor Dave Cieslewicz bills as a more efficient and powerful department. Affirmative Action, with a $650,000 budget, was supposed to ensure a diverse city workforce and investigate internal discrimination complaints. The EOC, with a $600,000 budget, handled complaints from protected classes such as minorities, women and people with disabilities. It also did outreach.
Honduras RPCV Lucia Nunez heads Equal Rights Division in the state Department of Workforce Development
'One that brings people together'
BRENDA INGERSOLL bingersoll@madison.com
Lucia Nunez was a middle child, and as such, she was always a bridge builder.
Asked who she is, Nunez, 46, head of the Equal Rights Division in the state Department of Workforce Development, says, "I'm the diplomat, the one that resolves the conflicts. I'm the one that brings people together."
Community leaders say she'll need all those diplomatic skills - honed in various jobs since her youth in her native Cuba and the U.S. Virgin Islands - for her new post. Nunez has been appointed director of Madison's controversial new Department of Civil Rights and likely will be approved by the City Council on Tuesday to start work in February.
She'll preside over a merger of the Affirmative Action Department and Equal Opportunities Commission, into what Mayor Dave Cieslewicz bills as a more efficient and powerful department. Affirmative Action, with a $650,000 budget, was supposed to ensure a diverse city workforce and investigate internal discrimination complaints. The EOC, with a $600,000 budget, handled complaints from protected classes such as minorities, women and people with disabilities. It also did outreach.
"I'm excited. I'm really, really looking forward to this," Nunez said. "Madison is a place where you can make an impact. I want to be able to push the envelope in terms of race relations and be able to make those changes we need to see in this city. Madison is a wonderful place to live, but it may not be a wonderful place for everybody, so how do we change that?"
'A good choice'
Under the merger, more than $100,000 in administrative savings will be used to help support city housing laws, provide translation help, increase city purchasing from minority and female vendors and more.
But groups such as the NAACP, Communities United, Latinos United for Change and Advancement, the American Civil Liberties Union, Progressive Dane and others opposed the merger. It was supported by some prominent minority leaders, such as LaMarr Billups, special assistant to the chancellor at UW-Madison, and Steve Braunginn, former director of the Madison Urban League.
"I think she'll do really well at reaching out to those people who were not in favor of this," predicted Agustin Olvera, director of city housing operations, who was president of Centro Hispano, the city's Latino community center, when Nunez was executive director there. "She's good at getting people to talk and allowing them to have disagreements, to see the different points of view."
Ald. Brenda Konkel opposed the merger but thinks Nunez is a good choice to lead the new department. "There's a lot going on in our community, and the message I hear is that people of color don't feel welcomed," Konkel said. "I hope she can help us find a way to discuss this and come up with plans to address this. We have to have a more inclusive community."
A March 2004 survey contributed to suspicions that Madison is not all it can be. It revealed that 72 percent of whites reported a high quality of life compared to only 20 percent of blacks, 55 percent of Asians and 58 percent of Latinos. More disturbing, 48 percent of blacks reported a low quality of life.
Latina and lesbian
Nunez moved to Madison in 1999 to become executive director of Centro Hispano, Dane County's Latino community center. In 2003, she became deputy secretary of the state Department of Workforce Development. She worked previously as a senior curriculum specialist at Stanford University and as a Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras.
It was in Honduras that Nunez met and fell in love with another Peace Corps volunteer, Heidi Vargas. She and Vargas, now a stay-at-home mother, have two children, Carina Vargas-Nunez, 9, and Mateo Vargas-Nunez, 3. Nunez gave birth to Carina, and Vargas gave birth to Mateo. The women used the same sperm donor, so the children are half- siblings.
Bonnie Brandweth has known Nunez since they were in the Peace Corps 20 years ago, and persuaded Nunez and Vargas to move to Madison from California in 1999.
"She's one of those creative people who engages in whatever she does. In the Peace Corps, she lived in one of the most remote, small, off-the- beaten-path places you could imagine, and she thrived there," Brandweth said. "She's had lots of different experiences with people and can move gracefully from environment to environment. She's very smart, but doesn't come off as a know-it-all. If you sit down and talk with her for five minutes, she seems like you've known her a long time. She's warm, extremely energetic, a very caring person."
Brandweth said that on Christmas Eve, Nunez and Vargas made tamales and sauce "and handed them out to their neighbors. She's an engaging, social person."
Nunez said as a Latina and a lesbian, she has experience with prejudice and discrimination. "I've had the experience of applying for teaching positions in California. A woman looked at me and took my application and said to me, 'It's so good to see you people struggle,'" Nunez recounted.
"What was she meaning? Did she just dump my r sum in the garbage?" Nunez asked. "So I was left with doubt . . . As a person of color, there's always that question: Why wasn't I called back? There's doubt and it does eat away at you, and how do you fight that to keep functioning in this society?"
'A different perspective'
Mona Adams Winston, a black community activist, said it will take time to get the Civil Rights Department up and running and "for people to see that they can trust" Nunez.
"Equal Opportunities and Affirmative Action have been run by African Americans, so this will be different as far as what our community has known. I'm not saying that it will be a bad different, just different," she said. "I think Lucia will bring a different perspective and I'm thinking she will be open and I look forward to that openness. I hope it works out for her and for our community."
Ald. Brian Benford initially opposed the merger, but wishes Nunez well. "The biggest challenge we face as a community in the city of Madison is we're very adept at leaving people behind as we go forward with the development of new condominiums and so on," Benford said. "Not one person or one department is able to (rectify) this. We as a community really need to come together to address some of the disparities here in Madison. . . . I hope we can support her, and I'm confident that if anyone can do it, she can do it."
When she starts her new job, Nunez said the first thing she'll do is meet with staff. "I don't want to dwell on the controversy, but I need to understand what people felt about this new department, what they may continue to see as obstacles. If I understand that, we can assure strategies," she said.
"If one of the fears is that by combining these agencies, they get lost, we have to make sure they don't lose their identity and history."
She added, "I am the type of person - give me all the objections and give me all the controversy, all the problems. I don't mind hearing them. I can learn a lot from what people have to say, and I do want to hear from all the community leaders, and economic and social leaders. I'm a believer that race relations permeates everything: employment, housing, spiritual and social circles. You can't just isolate it."
She'll need help to make the department work, Nunez said. "I'm making lists of people to talk to and I hope people reach out to me. We're going to be under the microscope and I want people to realize that race relations is not just a burden on people of color, it's the whole society's."
