Involvement
Around 1996 while still living and practicing in the Grove, I began to notice that although prosperity was being enjoyed all around us, somehow it seemed to have passed over the City of Miami and my Village of Coconut Grove. It was during this time that I became President of the Center Grove Neighborhood Association (now known as Village of Center Grove).
This was the fertile ground to hone my interests in promoting and maintaining our trees and green space. Replanting and replenishing had become an increasingly important issue post Andrew for us since we had lost so much of our canopy during the hurricane season.
During this time in my life, recognizing the problem was easy but acting upon the problem was my calling. Along with neighbors like Mike Bushey, I planted more than 150 oak trees on and around Virginia Street, Mary Street and Day Avenue. This sparked a continued commitment by neighbors such as Lester Pancoast, who then helped landscape for another 100 native trees around Blanche Park and Kirk Monroe Parks.
With the success of the tree planting initiative under our belts, we started working with former Neighborhood Resource Officer, Audrey Eckert and created the original dog parks in the Southeastern United States. We approached Purina for financial assistance and they agreed to give us enough money to fund the infrastructure, paving, grass, irrigation, fences and picnic tables in the park. These parks have become an important part of our community and are known by most people as Blanche Park and Kennedy Park. Blanche Park and Kennedy Park paved the way for similar ventures across the state, endeavoring to marry private enterprise with our noble goal.
Along with my colleagues at The Grove Merchant Group, I helped create Code 33 in 2004. This is a program that promotes participating Grove merchants and restaurants by rewarding local residents in the 33133 zip code with discounts on purchases and meals. The program continues to thrive with more than 500 participants and 100 local merchants.
In the same year we hit yet another milestone — One Grove Alliance was created to unite all the Grove homeowners associations under one roof. Soon after its inception, Home Depot’s plans to take over the Grove Gate Shopping Center emerged, and The Grove First, aka “The Grove Says No to Home Depot” organization was formed. Out of 18,000+ local residents, 13,000 people signed our petition to give voice to the opinion that Home Depot or any big industrial box store does not belong in the middle of a densely populated residential community. This has become a pivotal and unifying quality of life issue in our Village.
Finally before being elected to the City of Miami Commission, I was co-chair of the Village Council’s TreeWatch Committee to ensure the safety ofour precious tree canopy. Through our perseverance with the City Manager to collect and enforce fines to irresponsible developers who have leveled much of our beautiful canopy,they are finally being charged with large fines and are being forced to replace what theyhave destroyed. Through this effort, the City Manager has allotted over $300,000 to reforest the canopy of Coconut Grove which has been depleted by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma.
