Anna Richards is the newest member of the Board of Orange County Commissioners.
The six other commissioners selected Richards from a pool of four applicants on Thursday night to fill an empty District 1 seat, created by Mark Dorosin resigning from the board.
Richards, who previously served as the president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro chapter of the NAACP, was chosen over Marilyn Carter, Rani Dasi and Penny Rich. The board’s vote for Richards was unanimous.
“I am beyond humbled by this opportunity,” said Richards after the decision, “and it will be my intention to get on the learning curve. I know I’ve got a steep one.”
County laws require a selection process to fill a vacant seat on the Board of Commissioners. Dorosin, who left for a position at Florida A&M’s School of Law in July, was a Democratic representative of District 1. That meant those who could replace him must be District 1 residents and also registered to the Democratic Party. The county government opened the application period in late June, with the Orange County Democratic Party then reviewing the applicants and making its own private recommendation to the board.
Since Thursday’s meeting was conducted virtually, the vote for a new commissioner was conducted in a Zoom poll and then confirmed by the commissioners showing their handwritten votes.
After the vote, Commissioner Sally Greene said she believes an election is a more fair method to fill a vacant seat, but the commissioners were bound by the government’s statutes.
“This is not the ideal process,” Greene said. “The ideal process would’ve been a special election, which is sometimes held in these circumstances. It’s expensive, it has its drawbacks. But this is the process we have and we worked through it.”
Richards won recognition in 2019 from the North Carolina NAACP, earning the Branch President of the Year award. She has a long history of working as a community advocate since her retirement from aerospace company Boeing in 2013, and touted that experience of bringing organizations together during her comments before the vote.
Afterward, Richards also recognized Rich, Dasi and Carter for their work in Orange County.
“I want to take a minute to appreciate the three other people who participated in this process,” she said. “It will be my intention to engage with them because they’re strong leaders in the community and they represent voices in the community I’m sensitive to and want to hear from.
Chair of the Orange County Commissioners Renee Price said Richards can work with the county’s staff to learn some of the background knowledge on county proceedings before joining the board for their work session on Thursday, September 9.
“Between now and then,” said Price, “you can work with our clerk to get sworn in and get everything you need for that meeting.”
Richards will serve in the District 1 seat until December 2022. Despite its four-year term voters elected Dorosin to, the seat will be up for election again in the March 2022 primaries and November 2022 general election.
With Richards’ selection, six of the seven Orange County commissioners are now women.
Photo via the Town of Chapel Hill/I Was Still Singing Project.
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