After nearly two months on the job, the new head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas is reaching out to the community — to bunch of community, labor and consumer organizations that have repeatedly asked to be heard.

Dallas Fed president Rob Kaplan tomorrow will met with a variety of representatives of the national Fed Up Coalition for about 90 minutes, according to the regional bank.

The group was unhappy with the Dallas Fed’s “cryptic” search process to replace replaced former chief Richard Fisher, who retired in March, and with its lack of transparency. I wrote about it. Fed Up members in Texas and nationwide also have called for Federal Reserve to focus on full employment and higher wages for blacks and others in poor neighborhoods who have been left out of the economic recovery.

In August, the Dallas Fed named Kaplan, a former Harvard business professor and investment banker, as president and CEO starting Sept. 8. As one of 12 Fed regional bank presidents around the country, Kaplan helps set the nation’s economic and monetary policy, such as interest rates, that affects people everywhere.

The day after Kaplan’s announcement, the Texas Organizing Project’s Dallas County director Brianna Brown suggested that one of the first things he should do when he got to Dallas was to meet with her group and working families in the area. I wrote about that.

Earlier this year, the Texas Organizing Project and Fed Up asked to meet with Dallas Fed board members to seek more openness and participation in the search process. The Dallas Fed also has faced criticism from other corners for a lack of transparency and the lengthiness (nine months) of its search.

The coalition’s request was denied back then, and instead a meeting was arranged with the bank’s general counsel and senior vice president.

Now, there’s another chance.

“We want to represent the coalition in the same way that the coalition has met with other Fed presidents around the country to encourage them to keep interest rates low to help people in the communities,” Brown said today. “We’re trying to figure out a way that the coalition can be part of the process around Fed policy. How we can collaborate and work together.”

Brown said it’s not a “pie-in-the-sky” idea. She noted that a Fed Up meeting with Chicago Fed president Charles Evans led to him touring a low-income neighborhood in September.

Nearly a dozen people representing Fed Up will attend tomorrow’s meeting at the Dallas Fed. They include: Brown; representatives of the Dallas AFL-CIO, Texas AFL-CIO, Center for Popular Democracy and Economic Policy Institute; Dallas Faith leader Wes Helm; and a Walmart worker. Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins also will attend as a guest of Fed Up, said Daniel Barrera, a Dallas organizer for the Texas Organizing Project.

Jenkins and John Patrick, president of the Texas AFL-CIO, did not end up attending the meeting. I wrote a follow-up story on Nov. 5 about the results of the meeting.

The Dallas Fed will have four people present: Kaplan, senior vice president Alfreda Norman, community development officer Roy Lopez and spokesman James Hoard .

“We want to obviously listen to what they have to say, provide any  information and answer any questions they have,” Hoard said today about the meeting.

Source: The Dallas Morning News