Press Release

City Manager Selected as Dewitty/Overton Award Recipient

Austin City Manager Marc Ott received the prestigious DeWitty/Overton Award Saturday, the highest award given by the Austin branch of the NAACP. The award was presented at the organization’s 47^th annual Freedom Fund banquet Saturday.

“Marc Ott came to Austin with a vision for excellence and has been working tirelessly to ensure our growth and sustainability,” said Austin NAACP President Nelson Linder. “Our selection of Marc as the DeWitty/Overton recipient this year is our way of acknowledging his dedication to bridging the gap between politics and administration, while establishing a model municipality where government meets the needs of its citizens, and education is a key tenet to developing the future generation,” Linder said.

Ott was named City Manager by the Austin City Council in January 2008. Prior to coming to Austin, Ott held various positions in city management — his most recent as Assistant City Manager for infrastructure services for the City of Fort Worth His career has also included a number of city management positions in the state of Michigan.

“I am honored to receive this recognition from the NAACP,” said Ott. “One of the tenets of being a Best Managed City is to embrace diversity. I am proud of the fact that we are dedicated to serving all communities within Austin, and I consider this recognition for every City of Austin employee who carries out that mission on a daily basis. NAACP serves as an important beacon in driving our values around diversity.”

The DeWitty/ Overton Award is named after Arthur B. DeWitty and Volma Overton, both notable local civil rights activists who spent their lifetimes working for social equality. In 1945, DeWitty organized the Travis County Voters League in order to increase voter participation in local elections. In 1951, he ran for Austin City Council and almost became the first African American Council member. Overton is perhaps best known for his federal lawsuit to desegregate Austin public schools during his lengthy tenure as president of the Austin NAACP.

For more information please contact Nelson Linder at: (512) 695-6674 or by email at: lindernelson@aol.com, or Kimberly Gist at (917) 327-1576 or Kimberly.gist@naacp-austin.org.