Pastor who took money from his grandfather’s church appointed to replace Miami commissioner alleged to have committed grand theft

Al’s Loupe

Pastor who took money from his grandfather’s church appointed to replace Miami commissioner alleged to have committed grand theft

By Alvaro F. Fernandez
alfernandez@the-beach.net

City of Miami voters and its elected leaders keep blowing opportunities. At this point, I don’t know who’s worse.

Just last week city commissioners had the chance to show that they are serious about changing Miami’s face — from that of a bankrupt city mired in corruption and bad leadership, to one where forward thinking and new, capable talent will tackle the city’s many problems. Instead, they tabbed a name from the past to fill the vacancy left by a suspended commissioner, Michelle Spence-Jones, who for the second time in a space of three months was removed from her commission seat by Florida Governor Charlie Crist.

Named to replace her was the Rev. Richard P. Dunn II. The reverend is an activist who once served on the commission. He has had his own scrapes with the law, including his apparently forgiven incident where he resigned as assistant pastor of Drake Memorial Baptist Church in Miami, after admitting he used money from his grandfather’s church to pay personal bills.

Actually, the more I read about Dunn, the more the reverend sounds like he has perfect credentials to hold political office in Miami.

But back to Spence-Jones. She was arrested and charged with grand theft right after her re-election in November. Authorities allege that she redirected $50,000 of county money to a family business. After her first suspension by Governor Crist, she ran and won in a special election held in January. And that’s where the voters blew an opportunity. Spence-Jones seems almost certain to land behind bars. Miami voters, in her district, had the chance to elect someone to replace her from a varied list — some with excellent credentials. They decided to stick with Ms. Spence-Jones, who likened her removal by the governor as a “public lynching.” Ms. Spence-Jones is African-American.

After Spence-Jones’ first suspension, Miami commissioners had to resort to a special election because they were short one vote for a quorum; therefore they could not appoint her replacement. Around the same time a second commissioner (there are five) plead guilty to corruption charges and copped a deal in order to stay out of jail. He had to resign his position and agreed not to run. The third commissioner, which would have given them the quorum needed, had just been elected, and had yet to be sworn in, when a decision to replace Spence-Jones had to be made, according to the law.

When she won again in January, Crist immediately suspended Spence-Jones again. The Miami commissioners now had the necessary quorum and a list of fresh faces to choose from to replace her. They included, as reported by Joy-Ann Reid in her Miami Herald op-ed piece, “Allison Austin, the bohemian director of the nonprofit Belafonte Tacolcy Center; Robert Malone, Jr., Ph.D., a onetime State House candidate; former Assistant City Attorney Erica Wright, who got The Miami Herald Editorial Board’s endorsement in January; Basil Binns II, who ran in 2005 and who at 28 was the youngest candidate; and Pierre Rutledge, the Miami-Dade School Board Operations director […]; plus Harvard MBA Durfirstson Neree, who […] spoke up forcefully for the Haitian community at the hearing.”

They opted to appoint a man who took money from his grandfather’s church.

I could blame it all on the elected officials. I won’t. There’s blame to go around. In the November 2009 and the January 2010 elections, voters had district elections in Miami where they could have, with their vote, chosen to change Miami’s direction. In the first, less than 20 percent turned out to vote; in the special election, less than 10 percent. And after the votes were counted, the new commissioners included a retread from the past who held office in the 1990s and had decided to run again; and two young men who I will not judge yet, but whose names bring back memories of the past — one the son of a former mayor, the other a brother, also of a former mayor. In my opinion, there were better options in at least two of the three chosen by the small minority of voters who turned out.

Finally, a question that needs to be asked is why the authorities, including the State Attorney, waited until after the elections to have elected officials removed from office when they already knew what was coming before voters went to the polls? At the very least, they could have saved Miami-Dade residents from having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to hold the Miami special election.