Mayor D.C. Reeves postpones Fricker Center meeting after backlash from Black residents
The newly scheduled meeting at the Fricker Center will be at 8 a.m. Aug. 13, instead of at 6:30 p.m. July 31 as originally planned.
Reeves said the purpose of moving the meeting was to ensure the meeting was about feedback on the community center and not other issues, which he said can be addressed at a town hall he will host on the evening of Aug. 26 with Councilman Delarian Wiggins. The location hasn't been set yet.
'This is a rescheduling of an event,' Reeves said. 'It's not the cancellation of an event. We've just given you the dates, and certainly folks can go there, or they can go to a town hall as well and share some of those issues."
Gentrification fears: Fricker Center renovation sparks tension as Black residents tell city: We don't trust you
Pensacola has $9.5 million in state grants to fund a renovation of The Fricker Center and held a public meeting on July 23 to get feedback on the center's renovation. A large portion of the meeting was dominated by concern about the gentrification of historically Black neighborhoods, anger over the mayor's absence, and several commenters who voiced distrust of the city's motivation for renovating the center.
'I've never seen the city of Pensacola dump $9 million into the Black community," Pensacola resident Jermaine Williams said at the July 23 meeting.
The share of Pensacola residents who identify only as Black has fallen from about 30% of the city in 2000 to about 21%, according to the most recent Census estimates.
'Anybody bringing any concern that they have with the city, it is important to allow that opportunity,' Reeves said. 'But I think in this specific case, there were things that might be more relevant as a town hall discussion and a larger discussion about the community at large, and concern about the changing community and what does or doesn't cause that.'
Reeves also pushed back on the idea that there was some ulterior motive behind the renovation.
'I don't take it personally when someone says it's hard to believe that the city is going to just come in and put in $9.5 million and there's not be some ulterior motive,' Reeves said. 'We have no ulterior motive other than we want to take a facility that has been left behind – the same way we've done with the Cobb Center, that's about to take on $1.7 million, so it wasn't going to need to be on the list of being in danger – because we want these to stay. We want these to thrive."
Reeves said if the community doesn't want $9.5 million spent on their center to be renovated, then he would 'take heed to that.'
'The community as a whole, not one or two people,' Reeves added.
Reeves also pointed to the benefits of a renovated community center for current neighborhood residents, which will upgrade the center's classrooms, restrooms, playground, kitchen facilities, computer lab, and add a senior center that will be a health education and outreach facility with Baptist Health Care.
'There can be no better definition of the actual term community center than what's being discussed right now,' Reeves said.
Reeves said he would put his track record of engaging with the community in public meetings and town halls over that of any previous Pensacola mayor.
'In almost three years I've been here, I think we're up at over 100 on every project,' Reeves said.
As far as moving the meeting to the morning, Reeves said that most public input meetings happen at different times, so people with varying schedules of work can attend. He said the Fricker Center meetings happening back-to-back a week apart at the same time is an unusual schedule compared to most public meetings.
"We thought we had some limiting factors with the Florida (Department of) Commerce to have it done by Aug. 1, but with some of the condition issues we're looking at in the building right now, we have an extension on that,' Reeves said. 'So we were able to not have to jam these in, two within eight days.'
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Mayor D.C. Reeves postpones Fricker Center meeting after backlash
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