Black community wants apology after School Board member tried to block colleague at meeting
A group of Black community leaders rallied behind Miami-Dade School Board member Dorothy Bendross-Mindingall at this month’s board meeting following what they say is the continued disrespect she’s received after another member tried to exclude her from a two-member meeting.
The calls for Vice Chair Danny Espino to apologize over setting up a meeting with board member Roberto Alonso last month to discuss minority participation in district contracts and then telling Bendross-Mindingall she wasn’t invited — came during the May 17 meeting, where leaders from the NAACP and the Miami-Dade Chamber of Commerce, among others, said they wouldn’t tolerate the actions levied at the board’s most senior member, who is Black.
“I bring a message of sore disappointment from my community today. Here we are on the 43rd anniversary of one of the most violent examples of civil unrest in this country’s history and we’re still fighting to move the needle north of 2% for African American participation in procurement,” said Kenneth Kilpatrick, president of the Brownsville Civic Neighborhood Association.
Kilpatrick was referencing the December 1979 Miami killing of Arthur McDuffie, the 33-year-old Black insurance salesman and former Marine, and the subsequent acquittal by a Tampa jury in May 1980 of the four white Miami-Dade police officers charged in his beating death — a decision that led to riots in Miami, leaving 18 people dead.
The sentiments, he said, were compounded by the “blatant disrespect” for Bendross-Mindingall at the two-member conference on April 18, who was told upon arrival by Espino she could not participate in the public meeting. (District attorneys later said she was allowed to stay and participate, citing School Board policy.)
“That disrespect will not be tolerated by our community and we demand decisive action by this board that will make Bendross-Mindingall, and the community she represents, whole,” Kilpatrick said.
Policy proposals prompt pushback
The calls for action came after weeks of comments from the community and board members, including Bendross-Mindingall, about the fallout of the April meeting between Espino and Alonso. Espino and board member Steve Gallon III introduced three agenda items about this at the May 17 board meeting.
One item, by Gallon, addressed minority participation in procurement and called for a review of the district’s programs for minority-owned businesses, which passed unanimously.
The other two items — one by Espino, the other by Gallon — aimed at improving transparency and “plugging the hole” for already existing policies that allow for member conferences, or meetings that occur outside of the board’s regularly scheduled board and conference meetings. Gallon’s second item passed 8-1, with Espino voting no. Espino’s item passed unanimously.
Espino’s item asked for greater guidelines regarding how a board member should notice member conferences and how far in advance. Gallon’s proposal called for similar guidelines, but also required a recording secretary be available for meetings and that all School Board members “shall have the right to attend and may participate in any member conference” — the latter, letter “C,” was the element Espino disagreed with.
“If you’d like to bring your item forward without C, happy to support it,” Espino said to Gallon. “C does not bring transparency. C brings group think. C brings a limited meeting potentially being hijacked when it’s supposed to be a fact-finding mission. That’s my concern with C. You’ve bundled together transparency and political tactics into a single item.”
READ MORE: Poet speaks up after Miami-Dade school bars elementary students from reading her poem
Other board members, including Luisa Santos and board Chair Mari Tere Rojas, disagreed.
Santos argued the language Espino was objecting to was “extremely important because it codifies that board members do have the ability to participate” in conference meetings. Rojas said she did “not agree with the fact that an elected official representing their district cannot attend any meeting that is being held in reference to Miami-Dade schools.”
As elected officials, Rojas argued, members can attend any meeting without having an invitation.
Gallon said he was confused by Espino’s pushback to letter C, arguing the vice chair had previously indicated his intent wasn’t about excluding members from conferences.
‘I am angry’
Perhaps the strongest pushback came from Bendross-Mindingall, who’s been on the board since 2010. In August, she won reelection with more than 75% of the vote. Espino joined the board in November after he was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis to replace Christi Fraga, who was running for mayor of Doral.
“I’ve never been called a hijacker,” Bendross-Mindingall said. She said she refused to believe that what happened in the initial meeting “was beyond our control,” as Espino had put it. “I refuse to think that we got poor guidance. My feelings weren’t hurt. I am angry.”
READ MORE: Miami-Dade K-8 bars elementary students from 4 library titles following parent complaint
She asked whether her constitutional rights were violated.
For Danielle Pierre, president of the Miami Dade NAACP, the disagreements and “behaviors we’ve seen” on the dais are harmful to the district. The debates could have been “summed up by acknowledging how things were handled” during the April 18 meeting and the vice chair apologizing for the “greater good of the community,” which she called on him to do at the May board meeting.
Espino maintained he followed proper noticing guidelines and the issue surrounding Bendross-Mindingall’s presence was caused by “incorrect guidance. The intent, he said, was not to exclude anyone, but to hear Alonso’s viewpoint on the subject.
He also maintained that he followed the state’s Government-in-the-Sunshine Law, which requires any meeting with two or more board members to be noticed and open to the public.
The idea that someone would have to apologize for following the state’s Sunshine Law, he said, “is, in my opinion, as confusing as the confusion that happened the day of the meeting.”
Still, Pierre argued, the behavior isn’t helpful and “it’s not who we are. We would’ve liked to see the board come together on one item that would have been unanimously supported to then move forward.”
