The Permanent Commission on the Status of Racial, Indigenous & Tribal Populations (PCRITP), Maine’s taxpayer-funded racial equity board, has hired a new operations director who previously received media attention due to formerly living in the Minneapolis neighborhood where George Floyd died.
The Permanent Commission was established by the Legislature in 2019 as a result of a bill sponsored by House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross (D-Portland).
Speaker Talbot Ross and Penobscot Nation Ambassador Maulian Bryant co-chair the Commission, which is tasked with a mission of “ending structural racism” in Maine.
[RELATED: Rachel Talbot Ross Has Not Been to a Meeting of Her Own DEI Commission for Six Months…]
In April of this year, PCRITP announced that they were seeking to hire a permanent operations director, with a starting annual salary range of $60,320 to $81,993.
PCRITP described the duties of the operations director position as overseeing the Commission’s $1 million-plus budget by managing contracts, grants and other procurements.
The Commission voted in June to approve a $538,168 budget for fiscal year 2025, which included over $100,000 for office space, nearly $65,000 for research initiatives and about $180,000 for contract and temporary staffing positions.
The Mills administration also allocated $1 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds to PCRITP that must be spent by the Commission by the end of this year.
The racial equity board revised their conflict of interest policy earlier this year after the Maine Wire reported that the Commission had awarded a $12,000 grant to a nonprofit run founded by Speaker Talbot Ross’ sister.
[RELATED: Maine Speaker’s Racial Equity Board Gave Her Sister’s Nonprofit $12,000 for Black History Month…]
At the Permanent Commission’s Oct. 2 meeting, it was announced that Aaron Hooks Wayman had been hired as PCRITP’s new operations director.
In June 2020, Maine-based ABC affiliate WMTW published an article about Aaron Hooks Wayman centered around his connection to the Minneapolis neighborhood where George Floyd died in May of that year, sparking riots in the city that caused hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage.
[RELATED: Maine Racial Equity Commission Banned White People from Talking at Lewiston Public Meeting…]
According to WMTW, Aaron Hooks Wayman met his husband Rich in Minnesota, and for several years the couple lived just blocks from the convenience store where George Floyd made a purchase with a counterfeit $20 bill — the incident which prompted the initial police response to the scene where Floyd died.
“That could have been me. That’s the biggest thing. It could have been me. It could have been my daughters. If we lived there it could have been our kids,” Aaron Hooks Wayman told WMTW just weeks after Floyd’s death.
“We used to have foster daughters, and I used to routinely send them up to that corner store all the time to get groceries and get sandwiches, and to think that that was where the murder happened is quite shocking,” said his husband, Rich Hooks Wayman.
The same-sex couple said that they are foster parents, telling the outlet that they adopted six children between the ages of 5 and 14, and that they refer to their family as the “Rainbow Coalition” because “there are so many of them, and it is a party wherever they go.”
“Our family is incredibly beautiful, right, because we are diversity, right, and we have no choice but to figure it out,” Aaron Hooks Wayman told WMTW.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="31737 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=31737">7 Comments
Well sir could you tell us about your qualifications for this job? “I lived just blocks from the convenience store where that George Floyd thing happened and…and….. I grew up in a middle class family?” WHEN CAN U START!!!!!!! I swear, you could not pack one more dumbass into the state house.
Another DEI hire to ruin the state
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ffv4IUxkDU
Can we please stop using feelings in place of facts. I don’t care about your politics, skin color, gender identity, your like or dislike of rainbows. Your family make up has nothing to do with this job. Generally speaking, there are those who have lots of money and those who don’t and there are very different rules with regards to those two categories of people. This is the only true divide in this world. As long as peoples perceived racial, gender issues are weaponized we will remain divided. STOP. No one disagrees there is a thing such a racism, we see people who are jealous of others treat them unfairly all the time, boo hoo get over it and rise above like your parents should have taught you. If you enable behavior it will never change.
The large sum of money being used for this committee must be spent completely. What is it being used for? Facts only please. I see the conflict of interest rules were adjusted and now the government employee who sponsored the bill is giving it’s money to a sibling which is a HUGE conflict of interest for anyone using large sums of taxpayer money.
What “structural racism”? Examples please.
Can’t we get rid of Talbot-Ross ?
What did the voters of Maine do to deserve her ? What made her so qualified ( other than color ) to be dictating “ anything “ to the people of Maine ?
Spending OUR money on HER subversive and divisive legislation . She really is a piece of work .
SHE NEEDS TO BE VOTED OUT !
ASAP
Save Maine from being destroyed by people like Talbot Ross .
Racism and discrimination is much more wide spread now than it ever was before. People are being denied jobs, housing down payments, government grants, safe spaces, reparations even denied access to cooking contests (king arther I’m looking at you) because of their LACK OF SKIN COLOR. The majority has been working since the 60’s to stomp out racism, this is the thanks you get.
Anything Ross touches is a racist mess, she causes most of this BS!