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Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones at her
State of District 5 Address on Monday. Photo by Josh Becker |
As police helicopters circled above Interstate 95,
busloads of Overtown residents in their Sunday best, many with
canes and walkers, filed into the Booker T. Washington High
School auditorium on Monday.
While the
school’s jazz band practiced on the lawn and students in gym
clothes waited for rides, community activists outside the
auditorium accused Miami City Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones
of allowing the gentrification of their neighborhood and called
for "a new commissioner."
A handful of
members of the local activist group Power U stood before the
entrance to Spence-Jones’ annual State of District 5 Address and
handed out bright yellow fliers containing an "Open Letter to
Michelle Spence-Jones." In it, the group accused the official of
supporting "the harbinger of displacement" of the Overtown
community for her role in a controversial 1,000-plus-unit condo
development that Crosswinds development company plans to build
on 12 acres of public land, on Northwest Sixth Street between
Second and Third avenues.
The project,
Sawyer’s Walk, will offer condos ranging in price from $130,000
to $300,000 for the required 20 percent of units that must be
"affordable."
"They want to
change Overtown into downtown," Power U activist Melissa Sturgis
said.
"They want to
offer some units to Overtown residents, but who can afford them?
Who has $30,000 to put down?" Sturgis recalled the story of how
the government pushed her own mother out of her Overtown home by
eminent domain to build I-95.
Power U has
scored several victories in the last year in its fight against
the project.
In 2005, the
grassroots organization sued the city and Crosswinds, demanding
that it
conduct a supplemental environmental assessment in accordance
with federal law. The suit forced the city to investigate how
the development would affect surrounding areas both
environmentally and socioeconomically, further stalling the
project. However, that study, completed in October 2006,
endorsed the complex.
The Miami City
Commission, in its role as the Community Redevelopment Agency,
currently is working to identify subsidies for prospective
homebuyers in Sawyer’s Walk.
"We are a part
of Miami too," Power U member Reginald Munnings said. "The thing
they want to do to our community is displace us."
"We would like
to see somebody speak for the little people of Overtown," Power
U member Agnes Morton added.
Inside, city officials milled about, including Miami Mayor Manny
Diaz, Commissioner Joe Sanchez and City Manager Pete Hernandez.
Philip Bacon,
general manager of the
Collins Center
for Public Policy, supports building
mixed-income developments in the district to address affordable
housing problems "without
concentrating
or warehousing despair or poverty."
"It’s always
much more sensational to get an emotional response to an issue,
but we have a lot of important issues that need to be dealt with
responsibly," Bacon said. "Neither the city nor the county has
enough money to build all of the affordable housing that is
needed."
Sandwiched
between prayers, a good portion of Spence-Jones’ address and a
10-minute video compiled by the city of Miami’s Office of
Communications addressed the affordable housing issue. "The
office or the title means nothing if you cannot effect change,"
Spence-Jones told a packed auditorium.
Spence-Jones,
previously a member of Mayor Diaz’s staff, said she decided to
run for the District 5 seat two years ago, in part, because she
grew frustrated by the lack of affordable housing in the
community. She outlined seven other key points, including public
safety, job training, the welfare of seniors, homelessness
programs, the support of small businesses and the arts.
"This is the
foundation of my next two years," she said. Quoting Martin
Luther King Jr., she added that "‘we may have come in different
ships, but we are all in the same boat now.’ It’s time to wake
up, Miami. Let’s go to work."
Outside,
though, amid the familiar, blaring police and ambulance sirens
characteristic of so many Miami neighborhoods, Power U members
continued handing out more fliers. Spence-Jones "stood during
election year in opposition to Crosswinds and then began to work
for the Crosswinds developers once you had the votes in your
hand," it reads. "This happened when you watched silently as
Crosswinds paid off community leaders, and exploited homeless
people by offering them twenty dollars to appear in support of
the developer. You have made this issue contentious by turning
your back on your constituents at the mayor’s behest.… Wake up
Miami, It’s Time for a New Commissioner."
That final line
bent Spence-Jones’ administration’s slogan of "Wake Up, Miami:
It’s Time to Take Control." After her speech, however, she
declined to comment on the activism against the Crosswinds
project. "Tonight is my night," she said. "I don’t even want to
focus on anything negative. You heard my speech — the proof is
in the pudding."
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