North Central Dade
Moves Forward to Incorporate
Story & fotos by José Pérez
Residents of a large swathe of unincorporated North
Central Miami-Dade County are making moves to create a new municipality that
will sit nestled at a critical junction of transportation hubs at a time when
state and local officials are actively expanding business infrastructure to
catapult the area more prominently into international commerce. For those residents, the incorporation
initiative is driven by a need to wrest control of their communities’ economic
resources away from downtown Miami in hopes of securing a more stable
socioeconomic future for themselves.
Neighbors and supporters of the North Central Dade Area
hosted a conference at Miami-Dade College’s north campus earlier this week to
work on “the planning, funding, and implementation” of different activities
they feel are necessary to create the area’s newest city. Gathered at the conference to the discuss
the future of the area which is alternately known as NCDA and/or Encida, for a
general session, panel discussion, and break-out sessions, were business
owners, academics, along with residents. State Representative Cynthia Stafford
(D-Miami), whose constituency now includes many areas of NCDA after recent
redistricting, provided opening remarks for the conference.
Mack Samuel, who along with Doretha Nichson has been a
strong proponent of the incorporation initiative, was excited about the
conference. “It’s an opportunity to
engage the community in a conversation that is long, long overdue,” he said. Samuels said that incorporation boiled down
to “remaining as you are or having your own self-determination.”
Nichson and other expressed a sense of urgency for the
drive to incorporate. “Opa-locka is
annexing part of this area including Miami-Dade College,” she said and added
that Hialeah is also looking to slice off parts of the area for annexation. “We have to fight attempts to cherry pick our
area.”
Both Nichson and Samuels see the City of Miami Gardens as
a model to follow. Created barely a
decade ago, Miami Gardens was created out a large part of North Dade County
that sits on the border with Broward County – and in the midst of a great deal
of uncertainty and hand-wringing – and is already beginning to thrive. Because of that, the conference organizers
invited the founding mayor of Miami Gardens, Shirley Gibson, to be a
panelist. When it comes to
incorporation, Nichson said that Gibson has “been there and done that.”
Gibson’s comments to conference attendees were simple yet
forceful. “Stop being afraid of being
in charge of your own community. If you
don’t own it now, someone else will later.”
A key item of discussion at the conference focused on
education as an investment in the economic prosperity of Encida. Local business owner Darryl Holsendolph was
also a panelist along with Gibson, legendary urban planner Ron Frazier and T.
Leigh Toney, the Executive Director for Miami Dade College’s Meek
Entrepreneurial Education Center.
Holsendolph raised the subject of the emerging
educational orientation of policy makers in the county as an important part of
the future of Ensida. He said that
with the growing push to invest more and more resources into making Miami-Dade
County an even bigger player in international trade, the field of logistics
management is being prioritized in a very deliberate and dedicated
fashion. He pointed out that local
colleges and universities are working with an initiative created by the Beacon
Council called One Community One Goal to create degree and/or certificate
programs within their curricula to meet this growing area of economic
need. He said that it is imperative
that related academic and vocational programs be created and supported within
the public schools located in the NCDA, such as Miami Central High and Miami
Northwestern High.
Holsendolph and others worry that the failure to include
NCDA in academic policy planning and implementation will pose a grave threat to
the future of the area.
A conference organizer and one of the driving forces
behind Encida, Nichson expressed concerns that she has not had ready access to
key policy makers. “I haven’t been able
to meet with [Miami-Dade Couty Mayor Carlos Gimenez] since he was
elected.” She added that the Beacon
Council was “not responsive. They don’t see us as clients.”
Mayor Gimenez is a co-chair for One Community One Goal.
Nichson cites as an example the absence from the
conference of County Commissioners Audrey Edmonson and Jean Monestime, who both
represent different parts of North Central Dade County. The attendance of the conference by Misty
Brown and Jordan Ricketts, from Edmonson’s and Monestime’s offices respectively
only reinforced the perception for some that, as Nichson said, the
Commissioners send staff only “because it is politically expedient.” Nichson was also frustrated with the lack of
“economic diversity” initiatives introduced and implemented by the area’s
county commissioners. “All they do is
affordable housing.”
According to 2010 figures, the total number of people
living within what proponents call “the North Central Dade Study Area” comes to
almost 85,000 people. African-Americans
make the largest percentage of people living in unincorporated North Central
with a total of 51,682 people, or 61.2 percent. The next largest ethnic group is made up of Hispanics/Latinos
who comprise over 35 percent (29,891 people).
North Central Dade County is bordered by the cities of
Hialeah (to its west), Miami (to its south), North Miami (to its east), and
Opa-locka (to its north) and includes the neighborhoods of Model City,
Brownsville, West View, West Little River, and more. Miami County Commission Districts 2 and 3
run prominently into North Central and it is anchored by the Martin Luther King
Boulevard Corridor along NW 62 Street, the 441 Corridor along NW 7 Street, the
Unity Boulevard Corridor along NW 27 Avenue and the Northside Corridor along NW
79 Street as well as the NW 119 Street Corridor.
The North Central Dade area is also home to Miami Central
Senior High and Miami Northwestern Senior High and their feeder schools as well
as Dorsey Vocational Center, Turner Technical Arts High, and the main campus of
Miami-Dade College.
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