In the wake of a bruising power struggle, including allegations of misconduct and abuse, the Grove’s signature civic group is struggling to regain its relevance.
Nearly two years after an internal power struggle featuring accusations of racism, elitism and sexual harassment, the Coconut Grove Village Council – an unofficial city advisory board elected by Coconut Grove voters – is on life support.
Its last chairman resigned in 2022 and hasn’t been replaced. The group hasn’t met since May. Its website hasn’t been updated in months.
“If we don’t have a presence at City Hall for issues important to the Grove, then we haven’t mobilized our power,” Chris Baraloto, a Florida International University environmental sciences professor and the council’s vice chair told the Spotlight. “And to the extent we haven’t carried that out, we are open to constructive criticism.”
Baraloto attributes much the council’s struggles to the abuse allegations and personality conflicts in 2022 that led to the resignation of five members and the expulsion of two others. Today only three of its nine members were elected by Grove voters. The others were appointed to fill empty seats.
Others interviewed for this article say the recent shake up may be as much symptom as cause. The council, for a time in the early 2000s the most powerful voice within a community known for civic activism, in more recent years has routinely failed to influence city policy. Attendance at its meeting has dwindled to almost no one, few candidates have been willing to serve, and city officials are largely indifferent to its causes and concerns.
“I think there’s always a need for a voice in the Grove, but should it be [the Village Council]?” asks former Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, who springboarded into politics two decades ago from his seat as council chair. “It kind of has some really negative connotations surrounding it, and maybe people in the Grove want to reconstitute it into something different.”
If that happens, says local broker and developer Marcelo Fernandes, who served as the group’s chairman from 2017 until his resignation in 2022, the council has only itself to blame. “I almost want to shut it down, and tell the mayor and commissioners not to have another election because the council is not doing anything.”
A secession threat leads to council’s creation
The Village Council has its roots in rebellion. In the early 1990s, fed up with City Hall corruption and dysfunction and a perceived indifference to the Grove’s neighborhood concerns, a group of residents organized to secede from the city and establish itself as an independent municipality. While the effort failed, city officials sought to appease Grove civic leaders – among Miami’s most politically active – by establishing an elected advisory body representing the Grove.
And while the city bestowed no actual legislative authority on the council, it baked in a degree of legitimacy by allowing it to hold its monthly meetings, after hours, in the commission chambers at City Hall on Dinner Key. The city further enhanced the council’s bona fides by adding its elections to the November general election ballot, along with other local races. The nonpartisan elections take place every four years.
Coconut Grove attorney Tucker Gibbs was one of nine members elected to the first council in 1991. Four years later, Gibbs didn’t run for re-election but returned for another term in 1999.
“Coconut Grove was being ignored and we were being dumped on by developers,” Gibbs recalls. “The council was designed as a group who could present our position to the city, and we would have a little more credibility than that of a civic association or homeowners association.”
Yet during both his tours of duty, Gibbs acknowledges, the council was largely unsuccessful in pushing through its agenda, especially on issues related to development.
Among the failures: a proposed zoning code and comprehensive master plan to redevelop Dinner Key, using any proceeds from the deal to fund infrastructure improvements around the Grove. Despite wide community support, then-Miami City Commissioner J.L. Plummer put the kibosh on the council’s proposal, Gibbs said.
In the early 2000s – the group’s heyday to some – the council did notch some wins, most notably helping support opposition to a full-sized Home Depot on Bird Avenue near U.S. 1. While the council-led grassroots campaign failed to stop the construction-materials giant from moving into the neighborhood, the city rejected plans for a new, larger building, leading to a much-downsized store within an existing structure.
The battle elevated Sarnoff’s profile. In 2006, he was elected as the District 2 city commissioner representing Coconut Grove, beating an appointed incumbent, Linda Haskins, by more than 30 points.
“At the time, the council was a very active, very community-oriented board,” Sarnoff recalls. “It was a different time. People really cared.”
Council whiffs on neighborhood protections
In the 2010s, a new group of longtime Grove residents took over the council’s helm. Linda Williams, who served two consecutive terms from 2013 to 2021, including a stint as vice chair, tells the Spotlight that she and her colleagues focused on lobbying city leaders over typical neighborhood concerns such as fixing potholes, installing planters on Grand Avenue in the West Grove and installing speed bumps to slow traffic.
But on the bigger issues, she says, the council came up empty.
For instance, council members worked closely with then-City Commissioner Ken Russell in 2017 and 2018 to propose revisions to Coconut Grove’s zoning code overlay, known as the Neighborhood Conservation District. Their goal was to rein in tree removals, protect historic structures, and to modestly reduce the footprint of new single-family homes. Again, despite overwhelming community support – plus a strong endorsement from city planning officials – Russell was unable to muster votes from his fellow commissioners and the measure died.
Williams also worked with Russell on legislation to protect nearly 60 homes in the West Grove, the historically Black neighborhood rechristened “Little Bahamas” in 2022. With lobbyists and land use attorneys fomenting dissent, many property owners rejected the plan and other city commissioners treated the effort with indifference.
Recognizing the council’s waning influence, Fernandes, its chair at the time, pivoted to smaller battles. “We appealed tree removals and appealed building setback waivers,” he says. “And we won some of those.”
Indeed, Fernandes believes the council’s enthusiasm for appealing – and sometimes overturning – zoning decisions may have prompted city officials in 2021 to quietly amend its code, eliminating the fee waiver for civic groups on such appeals.
“It used to be if the Village Council represented an adjacent neighbor who is directly affected [by a zoning decision], it didn’t cost anything,” he says. “Now it costs $1,500 plus mailing fees.”
When the pandemic hit in 2020, Fernandes recounts, the council continued to meet virtually, and it shared news and community updates with constituents with an email list that had grown to over 2,000. “We were getting a lot of people at our meetings, even the ones on Zoom,” he says. “We had traction.”
Outspoken new member rattles status quo
The 2021 council election brought a changing of the guard. Seven of the previous nine members were either termed out or did not run for reelection. Only Fernandes and Javier Gonzalez, now the Coconut Grove liaison for District 2 City Commissioner Damian Pardo, remained.
Under council bylaws, any Grove resident could declare their candidacy, with the top nine vote-getters securing a seat. In 2021 only 14 people threw their hat in the ring.
William “Joe” Brown, a former sports marketing agent who has promoted himself as a real estate investor on projects overseas, garnered the ninth-most votes, securing the final spot on the council. Brown, who is black, says he got involved as a way to help residents of the West Grove, which had been buffeted for years by gentrification and underinvestment.
“I didn’t run because I wanted to be popular,” Brown tells the Spotlight. “I ran because black boys in the West Grove are going to jail and dying at an alarming rate. I ran because I’ve had to go to Elizabeth Virrick Park many times to stop my sons from getting shot or getting involved in gangs.”
Yet before he could be sworn into office, Brown insists, he faced the “the petty racial divide of Coconut Grove” that he had hoped to heal.
While Brown claimed to reside in a home on Percival Avenue, state records showed the property was controlled by a Delaware company. Citing the council’s rules that require members to live within the Grove, Fernandes raised the issue, asking Brown to provide a utility bill or other proof of residency. But at the new council’s first meeting in January 2022, Fernandes recalls, Brown arrived with an attorney, threatening to sue the council for discrimination. His residency status remained unresolved.
“He made it into a race issue that we wanted to force him out,” Fernandes says. “A week or two goes by and we have another meeting. Arguments broke out and Joe threatened a bunch of people. That night, we had three people resign right off the bat, including Javier Gonzalez.”
A month later, when the council sought to fill its vacant seats, Brown pushed successfully for a nominee, Eliot Durant, who didn’t live in the Grove but who works there – a clear conflict of council bylaws. Fernandes resigned.
“After knocking my head around and no one agreeing with me, I said, ‘I’m out.’ And I resigned,” Fernandes says.
Brown claims racism fueled opposition
In the Spring of 2022 the diminished council changed its bylaws to allow business owners to become members, Durant told the Spotlight. He lives in nearby Silver Bluff Estates on the other side of U.S. 1. “I pay taxes and bring revenue to this community,” Durant says. “Why wouldn’t that make me a viable candidate?”
With a new makeup, the council also shifted gears, away from its traditional battles to curb development and into hosting events for West Grove residents, Durant recalls.
During the holiday seasons of 2022 and 2023, the council secured an unused Christmas tree stored at City Hall to display on Grand Avenue. “We felt we stood for what was right and possibly different from what they thought was normal for conducting the council’s business,” he says. “Change is difficult for some people.”
Another change came in the form of Village Council-branded promotional events around the Grove that Fernandes, Williams and others believed were naked efforts by Brown to endear himself to prospective business partners, including some dignitaries from the Caribbean. Flyers and PowerPoint slides promoting the events prominently featured Brown’s name and council membership.
“What he was doing is not in the council’s mission statement,” Fernandes says. “We’re not here to make money, hold fundraisers and have parties sponsored by businesses.”
Brown accuses his critics of not trusting him simply because he is an outspoken Black man. “The white members who resigned were very unprofessional and petty,” Brown says. “They ran to be popular and improve their own personal lives.”
Brown’s downfall and its aftermath
By the end of 2022 a more volatile controversy consumed the council. Filling yet another vacant seat, the council appointed volleyball coach and sometime-fashion model Olivia Meyer-Massey.
According to a police report reviewed by the Spotlight, Meyer-Massey claimed that during a council-related meeting at Starbucks, Brown showed her photos on his phone of naked and scantily-clad women; that he repeatedly addressed her as “baby and princess” at public events; and that he emailed to other council members screenshots of photos from her Instagram account showing her in bikinis.
In a December 2022 Village Council group email, displaying the attached screenshots, Brown lashed out at Meyer-Massey for her allegations: “When we met, I showed you your [Instagram account] and asked you as a councilwoman to show less Butt & more Brains.”
During a council meeting in early January 2023, Meyer-Massey demanded the council address her complaint. “I do not think that allegations of sexual harassment should be handled lightly,” she said, according an audio recording of the meeting. “Nor do I think that a sexual predator should be sitting on this board representing our community.”
The council voted 5-3 to remove Brown, who maintains he did nothing wrong. “I was defamed by Olivia,” he says. “The people who voted me off were scared… I wish the council well.”
Last April, Meyer-Massey and Rondon resigned from the council. To replace them and the departed Brown, the council appointed Atchana’s Homegrown Thai restaurant owner Steve Capellini and Grove residents Davey Frankel and Luis Citron. Their first and only council meeting was in May.
In a recent interview, Baraloto, the group’s de facto leader in the absence of a chair, says he believes the council can right the ship. Earlier this year, he says, he used the council’s pulpit to weigh in on the city’s redistricting battles, and for a time he was posting an analysis of tree removal applications filed with the city.
He’s had several conversations with Pardo, the District 2 commissioner, about providing funds to the council and possibly waiving the fees to file zoning appeals on behalf of residents. Pardo’s response, according to Baraloto: “We’ll revisit this at a later time.”
“Our group needs power, funding or both,” Baraloto says. “And the power can be modest in the form of a more frequent audience and meetings with the city commissioner or being able to represent our constituents in front of city boards.”
In an interview with the Spotlight, Pardo appeared circumspect. He said he hasn’t followed the entire tumultuous backstory hanging over the council, but that it’s not up to him for the group to remain viable.
“If the community is not supporting it, and it can’t manage itself, then it will go away,” Pardo says. “Without a viable entity, funding is not going to happen. So far, I haven’t seen a stated mission or an organizational plan.”
In lieu of city funds, Baraloto says the council may explore other sources of revenue. As for its monthly meetings at City Hall, he hopes to place one on the calendar for later this month, pending availability of the commission chambers. “I think we can continue to represent the Grove as advocates, and try to mobilize community sentiment,” he said.
