WEAR TV 3 reports that Leroy Boyd, president of Movement for Change, is upset about the plans for the Community Maritime Park. In a meeting with Judge Lacey Collier, chairman of the CMPA board, Boyd said, “They sold a bill of goods to the community, as what they were gonna do, and already, they’re deviating from plans they said they were gonna do.”
No city/county or private development has ever formed a contractor’s academy to help minorities become trained to participate in the project. In the building of the Escambia Co. administrative complex, the Blanchard Judicial Center, the Federal Courthouse or any other major project has there been a signed covenant with the community that pledges a percentage of work for minority contractors.
Yet Boyd doesn’t say anything about those projects. No, he attacks the one project that has reached out to the African-American community. There four African Americans on the CMPA board – more than any other such board in this area – Eddie Todd, Juanita Scott, Hugh King and Rodney Jackson.
I like Leroy and have supported Movement for Change in the past, but I don’t understand where he is coming from on this issue. He attacks the project that will benefit his community more than any other public/private project in the last 20 years.
Why are Leroy and Movement for Change silent on the health conditions inside the Escambia County Jail? Isn’t that a bigger social justice issue than whether the park is extended a few feet to the west?