The deposition shows there was disagreement among the nonprofit’s leadership over the handling of a contentious lease dispute with refugee farmers at the New Roots urban garden.
Signs with City Heights Community Development Corp. insignia hang at New Roots Community Farm announcing a change in rules regarding public entry on Dec. 3, 2024.A former associate director of the City Heights nonprofit that manages New Roots Community Farm has testified that the nonprofit’s president unfairly targeted two Black refugee farmers in aKyra Seay, who is Black, gave the testimony in a deposition for one of three lawsuits that have followed the dispute.
Seay was deposed under oath for a lawsuit for unlawful eviction filed by Fatima Abdelrahman, a Sudanese refugee, against the City Heights nonprofit. A judge issued a temporary ruling blocking the CDC from barring Abdelrahman from returning to the farm to cultivate her plot until the case concludes. The judge also wrote the nonprofit “has not proven that it has the authority to impose any rents or otherwise control the property.
But the nonprofit’s roots are in community activism. Founded in the 1980s, the City Heights CDC grew out of a response to the lack of a neighborhood planning committee in the mid-city area, one of the city’s most diverse communities. Seay also said that Villanueva villainized Abdelrahman and her daughter “for simply speaking up” with questions about who has authority to manage the farm, and that she received the same treatment.
Seay also said that Villanueva was describing Abdelrahman as “coming off as threatening” to other farmers, but that she had only ever heard that from Villanueva. “I really do want to take ownership for and be clear about the ways that nonprofit organizations interact with and profit from the community,” said Ellee Igoe, a former IRC worker who helped start the farm. Igoe later co-founded Foodshed, a food distribution cooperative that addresses food insecurity in low-income communities.
“I sensed that we knew, as an organization, that we really had no legal ground for what was being done,” Seay said in the testimony.also indicate that despite knowing it did not have a lease on the land and that the city might not even own it, the nonprofit created and enforced rules on the farmers. Those are racist tropes, say Abdelrahman, who denies the claims, and others close to her. Meanwhile, Abdelrahman’s lawsuit says that while she was attempting to get her own property from the farm, the City Heights CDC security guard battered her, grabbing her arm and threatening her with mace.
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