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HomeMy WebLinkAboutR-93-0602J-93-768 9/27/93 RESOLUTION NO. 9 602 A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE CITY MANAGER TO ALLOCATE THE PREVIOUSLY APPROVED $200,000 IN 19TH YEAR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT :BLOCK GRANT PROGRAM FUNDING IN CONNECTION WITH THE SITE ACQUISITION PHASE OF THE PROPOSED OASIS HOUSING PROJECT; FURTHER AUTHORIZING THE CITY MANAGER TO ALLOCATE THE PREVIOUSLY APPROVED $15,000 IN HOME PROGRAM FUNDING FOR THE PURPOSE OF DEFRAYING THE COST OF PREDEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES TO BE UNDERTAKEN BY THE INSTITUTE FOR INTERVENTIONS, (II), INC. IN CONNECTION WITH SAID HOUSING PROJECT. WHEREAS, there exists in the City of Miami, a severe shortage of affordable housing for families and individuals of low and moderate income; and WHEREAS, the City Commission recognizes that participation of both the public and private sector is necessary to foster the development of housing affordable to low and moderate income families and individuals in the City; and WHEREAS, the City Commission approved allocating $200,000 of 19th Year CDBG Program funding in connection with site acquisition activities for the proposed Oasis Housing Project; and WHEREAS, the City Commission approved the allocation of $15,000 in 1992 HOME Program funding in connection with the site acquisition activities for the Oasis Housing Project; and CITY Resolution IVo. 93- 602 WHEREAS, the Department of Development and Housing Conservation is currently working jointly with Dr. Marvin Dunn, Ph.D. and representatives of the Institute for Interventions, (II), Inc. in identifying suitable housing sites in the Coconut Grove neighborhood in connection with the proposed housing project; and WHEREAS, title to the subject parcels will be acquired in the name of the City of Miami and not make available to the project sponsor until the project sponsor has provided evidence to the City Administration of firm commitments of funding for project construction and permanent financing; NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF MIAMI, FLORIDA: Section 1. The recitals and findings contained in the Preamble to this Resolution are hereby adopted by reference thereto and incorporated herein as if fully set forth in this Section. Section 2. The City Manager is hereby authorized to allocate the previously approved $200,000 in 19th Year CDBG funding for the site acquisition phase of the proposed OASIS Housing Project. Section 3. The City Manager is hereby further authorized to allocate the previously approved $15,000 in HOME Program funding for the purpose of defraying the cost of predevelopment activities to be undertaken by the Institute For Interventions, (II), Inc. in connection with said project. Section 4. This Resolution shall become effective immediately upon its adoption. -2- 93- 602 PASSED AND ADOPTED this 27th day of September 1993. XAVIER L. AREZ, MAYOR ATT MAT Y HIRAI CITY CLERK PREP ED ANI� &PPROVFD BY SEAN J . JbN ASSISTANT CITJ ATTORNEY APPROVED AS TO FORM AND CORRECTNESS: A. QZIN JN S, III CITY ATTO Y SFJ:Csk:M 24 k 1 i 93- 602 -3- m�, ~UIT34 rr; 11,•� \ .� �� ��!j��`j��li•..i^J �:� �'v-..!11.ii_fl i!t�'. �v��r�l,ir,•JT;'?;' _1 p,112.. 5O 93 AUG -f PH 2: 27 Cesar Odio ;g City Manager City of Miami 3500 Pan American Drive Miami, Florida 33133 August 3, 1993 Dear Mr. Odio: I am writing to request that I be placed on the agenda for the commission meeting of September 7, 1993 in order to apprise the commission of the status of the Oasis Project. Some members of the West Grove community have asked to appear with me. I will make an appointment with you and respective members of the commission for individual updates. Your attention to this request is appreciated. Sincerely, Marva JEJ LUA I IIITIIF=:� 30401 93- 602 Cesar Odio 93 City Hall 3500 Pan American Drive Miami, Florida 33133 Dear Mr. Odio: Institute for Innovative Interventions, (II), Inc 510 SW 47th Avenue Miami, Florida 33134 August 9, 1993 The Oasis Project continues to need your support. As you know, the commission has committed 200,000 dollars to be used by the city to acquire the primary site for the project. The city has also approved 15,000 dollars in pre -development funds. None of that money has been received to date, so in effect, the Institute with which I was working had no city funds as of the time that I left the organization in mid - July. The county continues to support the staffing of the project. We expect to hire the first mentors late this year. One of their first efforts in the Grove will be on crime prevention through working with youths in the community, churches and the police. Christ Church has committed 7,500 dollars for the project. Plymouth Congregational has contributed 10,000 dollars and Coral Gables Congregational has given 3,500 dollars so far. We have also raised 10,000 dollars for Oasis from the Roblee Foundation. I have helped to form a new community -based organization specifically for the Oasis Project. The Board of Directors contains several people from the Black Grove. We are anxious to have the city move ahead with the property acquisition and the purpose of this letter is to advise you that property appraisals of the preferred site at Grand Avenue and Hibiscus Street have been completed. We have approached all of the property owners involved and all of them are willing to talk about selling their lots to the city in order for the Oasis to be built. City staff have been working diligently with us in this process. The Oasis Project will be sponsored under the auspices of the Institute for Innovative Interventions (II), Inc. the new community -based organization with which I am working. The organization is incorporated as a not for profit community - based organization and has applied for tax exempt status. Our financial records and structure are being designed and installed by Val Matelis, a CPA with considerable experience working with community -based groups. The Acting President of our organization is also a CPA. We will meet whatever standards of financial accountability and reporting which the city wishes to provide. 3 93- 692 Many people from the Black Grove area wish to express their support for this project at the commission meeting on September 7th. I asked in a previous letter that you give us an opportunity to address the commission at that meeting. We will be asking the city to re -affirm its commitment to this important project and to instruct the city staff to proceed with the acquisition of the site for the project. Finally, in the interest of clarifying matters relating to my leaving the community -based group with which I had been working for several years, I am attaching a copy of a letter I wrote to Dave Lawerence, Publisher of the Miami Herald, on the Herald's coverage of the matter as well as a copy of an article which the Herald printed a few days ago which I wrote. I am available to .respond to any questions you might have. I will call your office prior to the September 7th commission meeting to arrange a time to meet with you should you desire. Thank you for your support in the past. With your help the Oasis will become a model program for rescuing welfare dependent families. SlnEere Marvin Dunn,"P .D Executive Director Institute for Innovative Interventions (II), Inc. Attachments: Lawrence letter Viewpoint article 93- 602 Dave Lawrence Publisher and Chairman The Miami Herald One Herald Plaza Miami, Florida 33132 Dear Mr. Lawrence: CITY ',1,,',UE r?;; 0-1 ICE 934UG 11 111,110:01 August 2, 1993 I believe that the Miami Herald made two grave and far reaching mistakes. In a series of articles starting July loth, the paper told the public that I was being forced from my job as executive director of the Institute for Innovative Interventions, Inc. and principal of the Academy for Community Education, one of the most successful alternative high schools in the state, because I used public funds for personal reasons, and because accountants told our Board of Directors that the organization was in financial "shambles" and "disarray." Neither of these statements were true, and in publishing them, -the Herald has destroyed my viability as a leader in this community. I appeal to you on the basis of fairness to correct this impression in the public mind. A great deal is at stake, including several jobs which have already been lost at the Academy. For all practical purposes, the Academy as we knew it, is dead. The school system may run the program next year, but the system has relied upon us as an alternative to its own alternative schools. The Academy will become just another drop out prevention program. The highly popular Oasis Project which I was developing to assist young welfare families, is now in jeopardy. This program could have become a national model, but no public official is going to give money to an organization headed by someone who is accused of misusing money intended to help troubled kids. I was not fired for using public funds for personal reasons. I am attaching a copy of my letter of termination. There is no mention of misuse of funds. The letter refers to a telephone conversation of July 9th which I had with the Board president and another Board member who called me at home to request my resignation. There was no reference to misuse of funds in that conversation. I have a tape of the conversation. The reasons given were failure to cooperate with the Board in establishing policies and procedures, and efforts on my part to move funding to an alternative grantee. The view in the eye of the public, however, is that I was fired for misuse of funds. This is akin to being accused of S Page 1 93- 602 child abuse or incest. It is an extremely difficult allegation to overcome and only the Herald can put matters into proper perspective. The question of misuse of funds seems to center around a trip to Denver and northern California which I took last summer. The school's assistant principal joined me for the California portion of that trip. I answered all of the questions regarding the trip to the satisfaction of top officials at the school board but apparently not to the satisfaction of the Herald reporter. No other instances were cited to me, and I would like to clarify where I think the paper made a serious error in reaching its conclusion that this trip did not involve a public purpose and that it should have been mentioned in the July loth article. As you might note in reviewing the memo to Bill Grueskin (attached) as to why this trip was mentioned, apparently the Herald was of the opinion that I lied about having attended a conference at Sonoma State University some forty miles from San Francisco. The paper was of the view that I claimed to have commuted to that conference from San Francisco. That would have been an incredible story and the Herald would have been correct to question it. But I made no such claim. I did attend the National Critical Thinking Conference as I have each year for the past three years or more. Critical thinking is the essence of the instructional program at the Academy and ideas and strategies I have gained from attending that conference have been implemented at the Academy with very positive results. I was registered at the Red Lion Inn in Sonoma California from August 14th through August 18th and I have receipts to substantiate that fact. These were shown to our auditor and to the Herald reporter. The auditor was satisfied as was the school board but the Herald reporter was not. The Grueskin memo is wrong. The accountant did not report that we failed to produce adequate documentation of the purpose of that trip. The trip is not even mentioned in the audit report, yet it is prominently mentioned in the Miami Herald. Why? Following the conference, I drove to San Francisco where I registered at the Crown Sterling hotel for two days on public business as I explained to the Herald reporter. In explaining why this trip was mentioned in the article, note that the Grueskin memo, referring to the San Francisco stay, reads: "More important, they did not check into the hotel until after the conference ended, which is why the article Page 2 93- 602 i low) -%\ pointed out the trip." Of course, I did not register in San Francisco until after the conference in Sonoma. I was attending an important conference for four days prior to arriving in San Francisco. The Herald simply chose not to believe me. The conclusion reached by the Herald that I was lazing around California with the assistant principal on public money was very injurious to my reputation as a responsible custodian of public money. After several calls from me on this point, as she prepared her editorial piece on my firing, the Herald's editorial writer added the word "after" (attending the conference) but this was too little too late. The paper had already leaped to the wrong conclusion in its earlier piece. The California trip became the focus of attention, and allegations about it fed the opinion that I misused public money. The assistant principal had prior school board approval for her travel during this entire time period yet she was dragged into the article as if she was in violation of school board regulations. This was terribly unfair. As for the last two days of that trip, I gave the reporter the name of a colleague from Fresno State University who verified the public purpose of that segment of the trip. I met with a number of academicians and community activists from the southern California area during that time, most of whom I had met at the National Association of Black Psychologists convention which I attended in Denver prior to proceeding to Sonoma State. I learned from them, several options for obtaining funding for the Oasis Project and my discussions with them led directly to a grant application for funding which was approved. I was at Berkeley for a full day of research and consultation. I made all of this known to the reporter who did in fact talk to my primary source of networking at Fresno State. He did not mention this in his article. With respect to the characterization of the Institute's finances as being in "shambles" and "disarray," these were the reporter's highly charged adjectives. Neither of the accountants with whom we were working ever used those terms, nor did any Board member. When he presented his final report to the Board your reporter was present. The auditor opened his verbal report by saying: "If III had had a formal fund accounting and formal cost allocation system and had Dr. Dunn not made political contributions, you would have had a clean audit." I asked hire to repeat that statement for the benefit of the Herald reporter. Apparently, to no avail. Page 3 A 93- 6o2 The reporter wanted "shambles" and "disarray." Please note that the Grueskin memo does not address the use of that terminology. The auditor did not go to great length describing that he had "tremendous difficulty" balancing the books. That is an outright misstatement of fact. No money is even alleged to be missing. All of our accounts were reconciled and balanced although we were cited for not doing so "in a timely way." See page 32 of the audit report. "During 1992, III did not have a formal fund accounting system. However, the books and records were maintained in a fashion that allowed for proper segregation of most assets and liabilities, and revenues and expenditures by program (funding source). However, we were able to test compliance for expenditures under the Department of Justice Grant." (Meaning all of that money was fully accounted for.) I also invite your attention to page 17 of the audit report in which the auditor writes," The dollar amounts related to the reportable conditions disclosed on pages 18-29 were immaterial in relation to III's fiscal 1992 budget." Just a few weeks ago the Institute was congratulated by the school system's chief auditor for having a "perfect" equipment inventory which includes just about everything of value the Institute owns. This is not "shambles" and "disarray." On more than one occasion, the auditor reported to the Board that, "This animal is 90 to 95 percent ok. The rest is fixable." The auditor did have important criticisms to make of our internal control procedures and I agreed with most of his findings. But we passed our 1989, 1990 and 1991 audit process with no problems of substance. Had internal control problems been pointed out to us we would have taken the corrective action required. This was not an organization in financial "shambles" and "disarray;" nor was it broke as a result of spending decisions on my part as implied in the Herald article. When this crisis began I advised the Board that we had a 6,000 dollar projected surplus through September of this year. I asked that the Board assume financial control of the organization until its confidence in me was restored. The organization became broke after the Board became obliged to pay 16,000 dollars for an audit that was originally supposed to cost 2,500 dollars and another 8,500 dollars to a second accounting firm. This is enough money to audit a moderate size school district. Yet, the implication in the Herald Page 4 93- 602 article is that I spent the organization into the ground. At this point I have no credibility with the public. Virtually over night, I have been disgraced in the eyes of my colleagues, friends, and neighbors after twenty years of building a reputation for honesty and integrity. I appeal to you to review this situation and to do the right thing. Specifically, I am requesting that the paper allow me the opportunity to respond through the attached Viewpoint article which tells the public my side of this dispute. I am one person against the Miami Herald. I suspect that even this protest will invite more attacks from the paper. But it was not my dismissal that has caused me and others this great anguish, after all, I anticipated being fired. My problems stem from the biased way in which the Herald reported it. Fairness is my only defense and I am very confident that you will consider this matter in that light. ince Marvin Dunn (854-9574) (443 2151) (279-7225) Page 5 93- 602 Dungy: I��rald,.'.created a reputation, then destroyed it IMARMIDUM have a flawless general ledger. Payroll community, particularly from the I have been ruined by The Miami Her. taxes are paid ahead of schedule. Just IN RESPONSE Miami City Commission and the Metro ald. Without the platform of Viewpoint ark Twain knew that newspaper weeks before my dismissal, the Dade Public Schools' - - - Institute business. He Commission. Residents must agree to go and Tropic and the local Pages. I would stories could be 180 degrees "The . County chief auditor the Academy for having was traveling on hired because he was outstanding off welfare as a condition for being live in be just another anonymous professor. wrong. accounts of my congratulated a was an allowed to the compound for a With that, 1 have been able to comment .ath," he once said, "are grossly exag- "perfect" equipment inventory. The student in my graduate classes in Coln- specified period of time, during which on social matters in forums as far away rated." organization had a 1989, 1990 and 1991 munity psychology and well versed on, they will be helped to become indepen- as The New York Times and CNN. In two articles audit process that we passed with virtu- the works of Sigmund Freud, dent. Now, even though our Oasis Now, aner two decades of work and ser- rd an editorial, my ally no problems. The 1992 auditor The Academy for Community Educa- money is fully accounted tor, public ofii- vice to this community, I am to be dis- putation and that r; ';rs wrote that the dollar amounts related to tion, which I helped to establish 12 years cials and others, particularly from the missed as another disappointing black some of my- "'- the reportable conditions he noted ago, is one of the best drop -out proven- religious community, who have champi- Icader? iends and col- agues were thor- � � - "were immaterial in relation to the orga- nization's fiscal 1992 budget." lion programs in the state. It is a strict school with high academic and behav- oned the concept and put real money behind it, must now think twice about I am pleased to be working now with ighly •trashed in Miami Herald. ��� x � r, 7u In a later editorial, The Herald told "Marvin Dunn, ioral standards. There are dozens of stu- dents list to the ivin more su giving support to an administrator •vhom a new board of directors that is incorpo- rated and qualified to receive. public he � ,r;';_, :!�' the public, a private on the waiting enter fall. The for the newspaper reports as having funds. This grou seeks control of the w&in also wrote, t takes two people �r>a..; j , :school administrator who put public funds to personal use, paid the price school this rewards success are many but discipline is swift and been fired for misuse of funds. The Herald reported that the school Academy and the Oasis y. Project. Its destroy a man; � with his job." There was no reference to sure. It has an excellent and stable teach- was broke, implying that I had over- members include some of the communi- ty's most outstanding citizens. The new s enemy to malign t.,, misuse of funds in my letter of terniina- ing staff composed of some of the most spent funds. When 1 turned the fiscal beard will adopt the substantive changes m, and his friend spread the news." Dunn lion. No board member ever told me that 1 was being dismissed for misuse of outstanding teachers in the school sys- tem. On any given day almost 90 per- management of the school over to the board, the organization had a $6,000 advised by the auditors of the old board. he. paper told the funds. I was dismissed because of a dis- cent of our students are in school. surplus. But the board spent the organi- Its system of financial controls will be tight and respected. Through our tblie that the Marvin Dunn, pule with the board of directors of the According to school system figures, 80 zation into deficit by running up an improvements and careful stewardship rectors of the a professor of Academy over procedures and policies percent of the students who attended the audit bill from an original cost of 51.,500 of public funds, we intend to earn the ademy for Com- cornmtill ity psy- unity Education, ehalogyat flor- and because 1 made the decision to leave the organization and to take its funding Academy last year are still in school. This summer we were on the verge of to a final cost of $16,000 plus another S8,500 in accounting fees to another public trust and save the programs that e school 1 helped ida bnterna. to a new board that I have been helping working with the school system to plan firm. This is enough money to audit an are now threatened by a distasteful internal brawl that never should have establish 12 years tional Univer- to organize. one or two middle schools in the inner entire moderate -size school system. seen the light of day. ;o, sought my res- city, wrote this The Herald reported that among my city designed on the Academy model. Most of this money was spent investigat- nation"after an article or The questionable practices was to pay Rob- Amid the barrage of negative public- ing outrageous rumors hatched by a dis- For me the greatest injure has taken rditor told them Herald. ert Loring, "a former political aide," to ity about me, the Oasis Project, a new gruntled employee. After my dismissal, place at a deeply personal level. After 20 e school's finan- teach my classes at FIU. Mr. Loring was program that 1 started to assist welfare the board brought this person back to years of building an unblemished repu- al books are a shambles." hired several years ago to provide com- families to escape dependency, might handle financial matters. This group was tation for integrity, professionalism and What the board was told by the audi- puter backup services and to maintain also be killed. The plan to create a beau- kicked off the property by the school honesty, many people now look upon ,r was that "This animal is 90 to 95 organizational records at an off -site tiful, nurturing and safe living environ- system several days after they dismissed me as if I am a different person, no lon- .rcent OK; the rest is fixable." All of locatiori as prudence and auditors ment for young, single welfare mothers me. ger worthy of public trust. That is the eorganization's records are reconciled require. Once or twice a year he was and their children in the Black Grove The irony is that as a public figure I cruelest hurt; after all, how is a broken id.balanced. No money is missing. We paid extra to cover a class for me when I area has won widespread support in the am a creation of The Miami Herald and mirror ever made whole again?