SECU Board Of Directors - Individual Acountability - McKinley Wooten, Jr.

McKinley Wooten, Jr. https://secuvote.ey.com/

A native of Kinston, Mr. Wooten holds degrees from Morehouse College and Vanderbilt University School of Law. He has served in several senior level positions in state government. Currently, Mr. Wooten serves as Assistant Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Revenue. Mr. Wooten joined SECU in 1994 and became a member of the Board of Directors in 2000. Other volunteer service includes serving on many community and professional advisory boards and he is an active member of his church 

 

✅ As mentioned in yesterday's post, I personally worked with only three of the current SECU Board members. McKinley Wooten, Jr. was one of the three. Mr. Wooten has vast experience in North Carolina state government and almost a quarter of a century of service on the SECU Board. A well-trained lawyer, highly astute politically, with a vibrant personality; Mr. Wooten was a valuable asset in the boardroom. Hard to fault such an active community volunteer - even the music director in his church!

In my experience. Mr. Wooten was best known as an early advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), long before that phrase became fashionable. He advocated within SECU for fair dealing and social justice not only for African-Americans, but for all state employees. Mr. Wooten was particularly well-known for personal calls to staff requesting additional review of loan requests from members in his home area of Lenoir (Kinston) and Greene counties or in his congregation or his community. You might think that would cause special pressure on the staff; it never did. Going the extra mile to assure fairness in lending was a core value at SECU... in the past.

✅ But with the introduction of risk-based lending (RBL) at SECU in March, 2023, Mr. Wooten has voted to throw many of his friends, co-workers, and lots of folks in Lenoir and Greene counties under the financial bus. Based on SECU's own data well over 50% of SECU members are now being charged higher loan rates - unjustly - because they do not have A-paper credit scores.  In fact Mr. Wooten has voted to throw almost all of Eastern North Carolina under the bus - unjustly. Take a look at where most of N.C.'s low wealth, financially struggling (Tier 1) counties are located: https://secuvote.ey.com/

 

 

✅ Risk-based lending is a return to old-fashioned "redlining" [see 4/4/23 post] at SECU  - lending which discriminates against African-Americans, single moms, and young people. SECU's own lending data proves this discrimination [see 4/1/23 post]. The cost of this discrimination for many SECU members is like stealing a monthly paycheck from them [see 3/26/23 post] over the term of a 5-year car loan. During his 20+ years on the Board, Mr. Wooten has heard several presentations on the injustice associated with RBL. Over 85 years, every Board which heard that evidence rejected RBL as a disservice to the SECU membership. The evidence hasn't changed; Mr. Wooten has. Perhaps wrongly putting his trust in the advice of the other major mistake, the "current/former"? 

  https://secuvote.ey.com/

✅ But what is truly appalling about Mr. Wooten's endorsement of discriminatory lending at SECU is the apparent, overt distain for fairness or any sense of justice for 2.7 million folks in North Carolina. How so? Mr. Wooten is not only a lawyer, but until recently was also the Director of the Administrative Office of the Courts - North Carolina's chief judicial officer. With risk-based lending, Mr. Wooten has blessed a lending system in which members can't obtain in advance the rates being charged, an accurate explanation of the facts underlying their credit score, any opportunity to present mitigating information, no avenue for a secondary review (SECU has discarded Member Loan Review Committees), and penalty rates regardless of guilt or innocence. 

 

✅ RBL is an "open and shut", kangaroo court - admitting no evidence, no appeals, no jury of peers, and routinely convicts and financially penalizes the innocent.  Over 98%+ of SECU members with non-"A" paper scores do pay their loans as agreed. Yet, those members are convicted - despite the evidence of their innocence which SECU has! - and unjustly "financially incarcerated". https://secuvote.ey.com/

✅ Not exactly the attitudes which North Carolinians want framing  our State judicial system - let alone anyone leading it.  All the critics of risk-based lending ask - trusted folks like retired CEO Mike Lord - is for their "day in court" with the SECU Board and membership to present the evidence that proves the "wrongful convictions" of RBL should be overturned. Any problem with a fair trial, Mr. Wooten? https://secuvote.ey.com/

 

❓Mr. Wooten, after all these years why have you agreed to adopt a guilty until proven innocent lending system for 2.7 million North Carolinians? Do you no longer believe that folks in Kinston, Lenoir/Greene counties, all of Eastern N.C. deserve special consideration at their credit union? Why is this happening at SECU? https://secuvote.ey.com/

... "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - [you already know who said that] https://secuvote.ey.com/