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February 10, 2005

Jeremy Schwab

Controversy erupted last month when Jorge Martinez, executive director of Project RIGHT, a Grove Hall-based coalition of neighborhood groups, wrote to Department of Neighborhood Development Director Charlotte Golar Richie, reportedly calling for the city to disband the Blue Hill Avenue Task Force. The task force, composed of businesses, religious groups and nonprofits, works with the DND to craft requests for proposals for the development of city-owned land along the avenue, and reviews developers’ proposals.

Martinez, who has participated on the task force as a representative of Project RIGHT, says the group is exceeding its purview by seeking to monitor developments for compliance with the city’s minority and women jobs policy, among other issues.

“The task force is a creation of the mayor and its only role is for the disposition of city-owned land, and that is almost finished,” said Martinez during a phone interview Monday.

While all of the city-owned lots along Blue Hill Avenue have indeed been designated to developers or are expected to be designated by this summer, task force Chairwoman Eva Mitchell says her group still has a role to play.

“One of our key pieces is to ensure that economic development results in economic opportunity, and land disposition alone does not ensure economic opportunity for people in our community,” she said. “As projects like these become developed, it has always been the mission of the task force to hold the developers accountable for the community benefits they promised, including and especially jobs. We also have to hold them to the design, the quality. So our work does not end once the purchase and sale goes through with the developer.”

Martinez and other members of Project RIGHT serving on the task force have clashed with Mitchell in recent months.

In the fall, Mitchell says the task force members elected Project RIGHT President John Barbour to be vice-chairman of the task force. Barbour and his supporters say he was elected co-chairman, and they believed that meant he would be sharing power equally with Mitchell.

“John Barbour was elected co-chair,” said Martinez. “If I remember correctly, and so do about 20 individuals I ran into at the meeting, we were electing a co-chair to the task force.”

However, Mitchell and other task force members say that was never the intent of the vote. During a December meeting, the task force took a vote of confidence to clarify Barbour and Mitchell’s roles, said Mitchell. They voted to confirm that Barbour had been elected vice chairman, a position subordinate to that of Chairwoman Mitchell.

“John Barbour and Jorge Martinez and [task force member] Chris Thompson would like to change the structure of the task force from chair-vice chair to dual chair,” said Mitchell, who served as vice-chairwoman for years under former Chairman David Lopes. “They haven’t stated any reasons.”

Barbour added fuel to the debate during a phone interview with the Banner Monday when he questioned Mitchell’s legitimacy as chairwoman. He said he had no knowledge of her being elected.

“It’s unclear how she came to power,” he said.

Mitchell responded that when she was elected vice chairwoman under Lopes, the agreement was that she would become chairwoman when Lopes left.

“We had this conversation in June when we went over standard operating rules and procedures,” she said.

Besides struggling with Mitchell over the group’s leadership structure, Barbour and Martinez have expressed concern that the task force’s influence is expanding into areas outside the disposition of city land.

“Public safety and quality of life issues are things this community has been engaged in twenty-four seven,” said Barbour. “Some of the sub-committees that are forming look like they are overlapping with some of the stuff the community is already doing on a daily basis.”

According to Mitchell, the task force has always been concerned with quality of life and public safety.

“The task force has always discussed those issues,” she said. “When we began, we had regular police reports from [District] B-2. A survey in May, 2004 found that quality of life was one of the key issues our members wanted us to address. Quality of life issues are related to development because if people don’t feel comfortable with the area, they won’t see it as a viable place to establish businesses and invest.”

Barbour complained that some developers have come to the task force in an effort to gain community support after failing to gain support from abutters. Two groups — the Harvard Street Neighborhood Health Center and developer Barry Shields — came before the task force in the fall to ask for support for housing development proposals that abutters strongly opposed, said Barbour. The developments were on privately owned land, while the task force’s official purview is city-owned property.

“[Developers] are attempting to go to the task force and use it as something they identify as a higher authority and strong-arm the neighborhood associations,” said Barbour.

The letter to Golar Richie surprised Mitchell and other task force members when a task force member who had obtained a copy read it at the group’s January meeting.

“The statement was very upsetting to many members of the task force,” said Task Force Executive Committee member and NDC of Grove Hall Executive Director Sister Virginia Morrison. “Certain groups have a right to express their feelings about the community. But because Project RIGHT has been sitting at the table with me and others since the task force’s inception, I think proper protocol would have been to bring their feelings to the task force for discussion.”

Martinez, while critical of the task force’s leadership, sought to downplay the controversy between the two groups.

“Folks who go to [task force] meetings do a lot of community work,” he said. “They have a lot of volunteer hours. It is not a good-bad people thing. It’s about a difference of opinion on how and who decides the development and housing agenda for the neighborhood.”

Members of each group have met with DND representatives recently. The DND has no plans to disband the task force, according to a department spokesman.

“The mayor, Charlotte [Golar Richie] and the DND fully support the continued existence of the task force,” said the spokesman, DeWayne Lehman. “We have requests for proposals out, and continued development initiatives along the corridor on which we are looking to the task force for feedback. We are looking to talk to the task force about their role as we move forward and the level of activity decreases.”

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