The City of Pensacola hosted a meeting Wednesday night to seek public input on upgrades to the Fricker Center. The meeting turned contentious, though, as the Black community voiced their frustrations with the state of Pensacola, specifically under third-year Mayor D.C. Reeves.
- Reeves was notably absent from the proceedings. Parks and Recreation Assistant Director Tonya Byrd was the highest-ranking city official in attendance.
Lambasting Mayor Reeves
Officials requested input early in the meeting on how to allocate a $9.5 million grant to improve the Fricker Center. Instead, one speaker after another took turns lambasting the City for turning its back on the Black community.
“I want to express my concern and disappointment that the mayor isn’t here,” Gerald Graham said during his turn with the microphone. “Gentrification has taken over this city, and people are being pushed out.”
Jonathan Green gave an impassioned speech that lasted nearly 3 minutes and covered a wide range of issues plaguing the Black community, starting with the rising house prices.
- “Whether he’s running for re-election or not, if he’s truly concerned about his constituents, he needs to do more than just go to the (New York Times) bragging about $1 million homes and actually deal with the poverty within this community,” Green said of the mayor.
Green criticized officials for the disorganized meeting, questioning why there was no agenda.
“There are not many business meetings you should come into without an agenda, so setting an agenda for the community to know what we were going to be talking about, so that way there would have been some type of organization to the discussion tonight as opposed to the inflamed passions because of the history this city has shown us,” Green said.
Pent-up frustrations
Over 100 members from the Black community attended the meeting, but only a few stuck around to offer their input on how to improve the Fricker Center.
“It was dialogue for many years that has built up for this community,” Byrd said. “It probably needed to be out there and said, and we’re here to hear what the community wants and what they’d like to see for the future at this site here.”
Recommendations from attendees included adding meeting space and improving accessibility for individuals with disabilities. About $5.5 million of the grant is earmarked for covering stormwater improvements, improving visibility throughout the building and renovations of the bathrooms, hallways and classrooms. The remaining $4 million is for multi-purpose programs.
Officials originally planned to take the community feedback and put plans in motion before the July 31 meeting. What unfolded Wednesday night altered the course.
- “We’re probably going to have to go back and have some discussions about the goals for the next meeting,” Byrd said. “This changes our game plan a little bit. We originally thought we’d hear from the community, hear what they’d like to see programming-wise, and try to look at how the space can be utilized to do that, and then come back and ask, “OK, did we hear you correctly?’
Instead, Byrd and other officials heard years of pent-up frustration from a distrustful Black community.
“The mayor and the city officials, they need to make it a priority to be at this next meeting,” Graham said. “I don’t think the people here are more concerned about the architectural aspect of this building. I know we had folks talk about the accessibility and the blind spots, things of that nature, but most of the people who came here tonight are looking at the bigger picture.”
- He continued, “Why all of a sudden are you going to put $9.5 million into the Black neighborhoods? Any time something like that happens, particularly in the Black neighborhoods, that means something else is coming behind it as an ulterior motive.”
Insinuations Offensive
At his press conference on Tuesday, Mayor D.C. Reeves delivered a forceful defense of his personnel decisions when pressed about community concerns regarding the departure of several Black administrators
- Reeves defended his administration’s consistent approach across all departments. “Inside this building, we’ve been crystal clear with no matter your age, no matter your gender, no matter your race, that we have clear expectations.”
The mayor rejected suggestions that race played any role in personnel decisions: “I never nor would I ever, and really even the insinuation is certainly offensive that I would ever make a decision based on something like that.”
He refused to provide specific details about individual cases, such as Police Chief Eric Randall’s departure, citing respect for current and former employees. “I’ve got too much respect for anybody that works here to feed the beast of speculation by the media or by social media comments.”
- Mayor Reeves added, “There have been people of color that have been let go. There are white directors that have been let go.”
Editor’s note: An earlier version mis-attributed a quote about Mayor Reeves to Mr. Green. Tracking quotes in a chaotic meeting can be difficult. We deleted the quote.
Here is a Facebook recording of the meeting: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?mibextid=wwXIfr&ref=watch_permalink&v=1127703762825328&rdid=PvkbRdFB0MCivwo5