The Theophalis May Community Center almost didn’t get built, but when it was built, the center quickly became filled with kids.
During the 2010 mayoral race, Lumon May and other Black leaders asked the two finalists, Ashton Hayward and Mike Wiggins, to sign a pledge to build two community centers in the underserved Black community. The leaders were tired of the Pensacola City Council pumping millions into parks and services in the City’s more affluent white neighborhoods.
- They recently saw $500,000 committed to upgrade Legion Field redirected to the Roger Scott Tennis Center.
Hayward agreed to sign the pledge and won the election. He then assigned his chief of staff, John Asmar, to find how to do it. Most of the Local Option Sales taxes had been spent or committed, but Asmar found $6 million to build community centers at Legion Field and Woodland Heights.
- The Legion Field site became the Theophalis May Community Center, but Asmar had to add a branch library to obtain the necessary funds. The library cut into the meeting space available for SYSA tutoring.
When the Theophalis May Community Center opened in July 2014, Mayor Ashton Hayward presented Theophalis May’s widow, Mary May, with a plaque to mark the occasion. Mrs. May took her moment at the microphone to deliver a message of hope, a message that her husband taught to all seven of their children.
“If you believe, then you can receive,” Mrs. May told the crowd who packed the gym of the center. “These children can be saved.”
However, the center was too small. SYSA was overwhelmed with children, adding hundreds each year.
When the City of Pensacola received a new round of LOST dollars during the second term, the City didn’t expand the Theophalis May Community Center. No, the Pensacola City Council chose to spend $20 million on a new Bayview Park Community Center.
SYSA realized that if any expansion were to happen at Legion Field. The nonprofit would have to build it themselves, so they have raised the funds to do it.
Tonight, the Pensacola City Council will vote on whether to lease the land next to the Theophalis May Community Center so they can build the much-needed expansion. Some members may vote the deal down because they want the children’s families to pay for the main maintenance and upkeep of the building that SYSA will use for maybe six hours a day on weekdays. These families struggle to put food on the table and keep the lights on in their homes.
- So the Pensacola City Council may once again tell the Westside to accept less and turn down the $3-million expansion. Children will suffer.
I hope not.
It should go without saying that we really can’t afford to lose this resource what with the Children’s Trust contenting itself to be an abysmal, tax-sucking failure.
But okay, let’s get the pointless theater of dragging this project back onto the agenda as leverage against the County–and actually, the people of District 3–behind us, and get this much-needed resource up and rolling.
Mayor Reeves needs to step back and reflect that his recent “power” moves of linking arms with the Trust and now attempting to shame the supporters of this venture with having to come again aren’t really looking all that powerful. I will never understand why dragging 2M of County money into a regentrification project that hasn’t even attempted–in the smallest way–to meet the previously promised healthcare needs of the surrounding community has become such a hill to defend at all costs.
I suppose it’s easy for me to say, not being in elected office, and having the luxury of armchair quarterback. But honestly, sometimes people in power just need to learn how to Let. It. Go. The average Joe really isn’t so simple minded as to not see through the playbook on all this, and it just looks small. Hopefully the mayor will get back to working with the County rather than digging his heels into ground over which he is already well in control. Petty isn’t powerful.