Abstract
This article examines public historic preservation agencies’ ability to support social inclusion aims within the context of the Certified Local Government (CLG) program. Though administered by the Texas Historical Commission, Texas’ State CLG program is federally-funded and makes available special access to technical assistance, grants, and loans to qualifying communities contingent on compliance. Program surveys the state staff administered to city and county historical commissions with the CLG designation indicate challenges around diversifying their leadership and identifying training opportunities. This article reviews those surveys to detect insights into how the state CLG program can create spaces in which local commissions can increase their “representativeness” through changes in assessment and training content. Specifically, I analyze two government assessment tools used to evaluate local CLGs’ ability to meet federal and state training and participation expectations. I compare these survey results to self-assessment activities and questionnaires collected during a pilot training on implicit bias, outreach, and cultural resource surveying I conducted with multiple CLGs in Gonzales, Texas. Findings suggest more creatively designed training and capacity building is necessary around inclusion, identifying structural barriers to participation, and foundational knowledge of historic preservation and planning practice, and ethics.
Highlights
The United States’ Certified Local Government (CLG) program, administered jointly by StateHistoric Preservation Offices and the National Park Service CLG Office, links federal dollars to hyperlocal preservation efforts and is mediated by each state’s historic preservation agency.County and city-level historical or landmark commissions are the organizations that participate in the federally-funded Certified Local Government (CLG) program, which makes available special access to technical assistance and grants to qualifying communities
Equity, and representativeness are absent from scholarship assessing the CLG program and its activities though the rest of society sees an urgent need to reckon with these matters [10]
CLGs in Texas suffer from a lack of consistent training and demonstrate some self-awareness of difficulties they have diversifying their leadership
Summary
The United States’ Certified Local Government (CLG) program, administered jointly by State. Experimental learning activities and self-assessment tools at the pilot workshop prompted me to ask an overarching question: might more trainings dedicated to promoting inclusive leadership and equitable funding allocation aid overall CLG performance, their capacity to increase the number of properties associated with diverse heritage added to the national register, and to make local leadership reflect the ethnic, age, and geographical makeup of a CLG’s community? CLGs must build the capacity to conduct and administer grants, and that requires training qualified staff and compliance with annual reporting Through this devolution of federal power to the local level, equitable distribution of funds and resources to underserved groups may be inhibited or incentivized based on the types of programming and reporting required of CLGs. Reports include current evaluation of performance based on the number of projects dedicated to inventory (survey), local landmarks, local tax incentives, local grants and loans, local design review, and local property acquisition. Equity, and representativeness are absent from scholarship assessing the CLG program and its activities though the rest of society sees an urgent need to reckon with these matters [10]
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