The pent-up frustration in Baltimore's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community with the center founded decades ago to serve their needs was on full display Tuesday night, when several local activists grilled a candidate for the center's open executive director position.
Joel Tinsley-Hall, 39, a black Baltimore native and Army veteran with a husband and children, an active church life and a history working with mentally ill adults and youth, at times found himself on the defensive during the more than one-hour interview session on the second floor of the Waxter Center in Mount Vernon, where the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of Baltimore, or GLCCB, is located.
At one point in the middle of the session, Tinsley-Hall got out of his seat and started sparring verbally with a leading advocate of Baltimore's transgender community, Monica Yorkman of Sistas of the T, after she told him he had "pretty rhetoric" but lacked the vision and passion needed for the job.
"I haven't heard anything that you are passionate about," she said.
Those in the room also never heard that Tinsley-Hall's husband, Scott Tinsley-Hall, director of strategy at the University of Maryland Medical Center, is a member of the GLCCB board of directors. Before the event, all questions that could infringe on protections barring employment decisions based on family dynamics, race and other factors were discouraged.
Mike McCarthy, the president of the board, said Scott Tinsley-Hall has not participated at all in the selection process, due to the conflict, and would resign from the board if Joel Tinsley-Hall is selected as executive director.
The session, which Yorkman eventually stormed out of, was organized by the GLCCB's board as an opportunity for prominent community members to add their voice to the executive director selection process. It followed news earlier this week that the center's acting executive director, Kelly Neel, has bowed out of the selection process despite being a leading contender and will be stepping down from her acting role effective Oct. 3.
So far, no other community interview sessions with additional candidates have been scheduled. Chris Adkins, GLCCB board vice president, said input on Tinsley-Hall provided in written form by the attendees of the Tuesday session will be sent to the full board "to kind of chew it over."
The board will review the input and decide if they want to offer Tinsley-Hall the job, Adkins said. If so, they'd then enter into salary negotiations. If not, they would look to hold another interview session with another candidate, he said.
McCarthy said a decision could come very soon.
Based on an initial review of the feedback, some in the group found Tinsley-Hall -- a graduate student in social work at Morgan State University and a former supervisor of Harbor City Unlimited residential rehabilitation program at the University of Maryland -- to be a viable candidate, Adkins said.
But others raised questions, including about his temperament. "People didn't care for him matching her tone," Adkins said of Tinsley-Hall's loud exchange with Yorkman.
"We all have a fairly strong sense that he could implement all of the goals and plans the board has set forward," Adkins said. "The question is going to be whether he can help us with our integrity problem."
McCarthy said in an email that he was pleased overall with how the interview process went, and thought Tinsley-Hall performed "admirably when it came to questions about managing an organization and implementing priorities.
"Even though there was some heated discussion, that is something the Executive Director at the GLCCB is going to encounter from time to time when dealing with a multi-faceted community and a limit of capacity to address what various groups believe is the priority," McCarthy said. "It was nice to see how Joel reacted to the situation as presented."
Prior to his grilling Tuesday night, Tinsley-Hall said he was nervous but excited, and "ready to sort of dig in and mend some bridges."
For several months now, the GLCCB has been working to address voiced frustrations from the community that the center has become unresponsive to community needs and unwelcoming to certain segments of the LGBT population, in part because of a lack of transparency, consistency and diversity at the top.
It's also been criticized for not taking community input into consideration when making decisions about programming, branding, the annual Baltimore Pride celebration and other events.
On Tuesday night, Tinsley-Hall said one of his first priorities if given the job would be to do a full assessment of the center's finances. He also repeatedly stressed that much of his decision-making would come only after gauging the desires of the community.
"What I've been hearing is that the community feels hurt. ...What do we need in this organization that's going to root in the community? And how do we bring it in?" he said. "It's not about what I want. It's what the community wants."
But those in the review group seemed dissatisfied with that answer, repeatedly asking Tinsley-Hall to clarify what his own solutions would be to a range of problems, such as transgender women and youth feeling unwelcome at the center.
Tinsley-Hall said he would look at other LGBT centers in the country that are thriving, such as in New York and Chicago, to see how they engage with those segments of the population. He said his strength is in leadership, and that he would seek out innovative solutions to existing problems that also align with the center's five-year strategic plan.
"There's no need to reinvent the wheel," he said. "We just need to find what's working, and bring it here to Baltimore."
Stephanie Baker, who runs the local Rainbow Youth Alliance, told him the GLCCB name and branding was exclusive of certain segments of the population, and asked him how he would implement a change. When Tinsley-Hall mentioned a change is already outlined in the strategic plan, Baker said, "I've read the plan and I think there are a lot of great things in it, but I don't have the trust that it's all going to happen."
Douglas Chay, a psychotherapist and director of The Pride Counseling Center in Ellicott City, questioned whether Tinsley-Hall would be able to separate fixing the finances of the center with fixing ties in the community.
"I think those things have to occur concurrently," he said. Tinsley-Hall agreed.
Randy Knepper, longtime general counsel to the GLCCB, asked Tinsley-Hall how he would renew ties with wealthier members of the community, to attract new donations. Jamal Hailey, director of programs for the Star Track youth health program at the University of Maryland, questioned whether Tinsley-Hall was involved in or aware enough of Baltimore's LGBT scene.
"There seems to be some disconnect," Hailey said.
Tinsley-Hall, who lives in Glen Burnie but grew up and has family in Cherry Hill, said he is active in local LGBT groups for families with kids, and is looking forward to getting to know more parts of the community.
Yorkman seemed to take particular offense to Tinsley-Hall's lack of knowledge on some of the programs the center and other groups already offer in Baltimore, including work she does with the transgender population.
"How do you bring transgender women through the door of the center?" Yorkman asked. "Why in the world should we trust you, when I don't know you from Adam?"
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Tinsley-Hall said he would need help from people like Yorkman. As she stormed out, he said he hoped to see her again.
