Worth the Read - Here Be Monsters: Michelle Spence-Jones: Bleeding her community?
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Biting commentary from Gwendolyn H. Barry's blog, Here Be Monsters, is definitely worth reading. (You have to read the blog to find out why she's given it that interesting title.) Barry pulls no punches in her assessment and opinion on the City of Miami District 5 political controversy. Check it out at http://monstersbehere.blogspot.com/2009/11/michele-spence-jones-bleeding-her.html Here's an excerpt:
The inner city political career of Michelle Spence-Jones has enjoyed a short ride of profiteering plenty. Mud clings to her skirts throughout it, repeatedly investigated for years. She cultivates the 'community' with the help of a considerable politic machine as the protege of past Mayor Manny Diaz (whom has not outwardly denounced her, yet is distancing himself abjectly). As an account from Spence-Jones' point of view reads over at New Times, the main witness against her will recant: [Barbara Carey-Shuler is apparently backing off her sworn statements against her protege.] New Times - 11-16-09 This certainly does not read...since Ms. Carey-Schuler has agreed to testify after charges against her have been dropped under the provision of her testimony. Spence-Jones' attorney claims that Ms. Carey-Schuler contacted him saying 'her testimony was taken out of context'...does anyone think that this is out of context: [``Did you in any way intend for Karym Ventures to get the money from Timbuktu and Osun Village?'' prosecutor Richard Scruggs asked her, in a transcript of her sworn interview released Friday.
``Absolutely not,'' Carey-Shuler replied. ``I intended for it to go to groups that I allocated it to at the budget hearings.''] - Miami Herald
What remains in light of this fact is really, what does the evidence say and who's zoomin' who? In the New Tiimes piece a neighborhood supporter of Spence-Jones, Leroy Jones, decries KDI (Woodard and Styles) as angry for not receiving the funds (ah, yeah, well, dude...obviously you've gotten YOURS) ... [Jones says his organization Neighbors and Neighbors Association had partnered with KDI Architecture, a company owned by Woodard and Styles, on a $500,000 project to renovate building facades along NW Seventh Avenue with Afrocentric designs. "KDI has been paid $71,000 by the city but they have never submitted any drawings," Jones says. "Michelle took the position that they needed to turn in the plans before the city gave them any more money."] but if you check the city planners office you will find the submissions from KDI presented over a year ago. You feel me?! GAD!
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