Fear dooms Broward medical complex

Five years ago, Broward County adopted a future list of projects that included a long-overdue replacement for a cramped medical examiner’s office and obsolete sheriff ’s crime lab. But nobody reads dry CIPs (capital improvement programs).

Four years ago the county found a location. It bought 7 vacant acres from the school district, west of I-95 in Fort Lauderdale in a predominantly Black neighborhood near three schools: Rock Island Elementary, Dillard High and Atlantic Technical College’s Arthur Ashe Jr. Campus.

Work began on a high-tech, $210 million forensic science center, and three years ago a Broward legislator tried to get $750,000 for the project in the state budget. The request was denied, and besides, nobody reads those appropriations requests.

Two years ago the county hired a consultant to conduct neighborhood outreach, but some residents said they knew nothing about it. Then came COVID-19 — and an election.

Nobody said a peep about the project until Oct. 19, when the area’s commissioner, Dale Holness, placed it on the agenda for the sole purpose of stopping it. In a stunning reversal, Holness, in a county press release, had praised its “community benefits,” with “educational opportunities and technical programs, university programs ... street improvements to beautify the neighborhood and new economic opportunities for students and skilled workers.”

The planned site of the medical examiner’s office is in the heart of the 20th Congressional District, where Holness is one of 11 Democratic candidates in Tuesday’s special election. A vocal group of residents, amplified by the politically motivated voices of Holness’ rivals, packed a meeting and blasted the project, with some criticizing Holness to undermine his congressional prospects.

Pastor Jimmy Witherspoon, a counselor at Dillard High, told Holness: “It’s easy for you

to say now that you support the community. But you should have supported the community in the beginning.”

This episode reveals much about a county leadership void and the difficulty that liberal white politicians, who still dominate the Broward County Commission, have in dealing with issues that involve race.

Fear, distortion and demagoguery doomed a venture that had the potential to lift up a community. Bending to political pressure, Holness said: “Because they’re against it, I have to stand with them.”

One of his rivals, Sen. Perry Thurston, D-Lauderhill, joined a protest at the site with a sign that said “No morgue” and an image of a toe tag to symbolize a dead person. Another candidate, Rep. Bobby DuBose, D-Fort Lauderdale, cited the fatal shooting of George Floyd in remarks denouncing the project.

Residents falsely claimed that the morgue at the complex would accept 18,000 dead bodies a year, but county staffers said the correct figure is about 2,500 — a figure verified by state records. The 2020 Medical

Examiners Commission report listed 18,141 as the number of deaths reported to Broward’s medical examiner.

A county architect who outlined the project, Ariadna Musarra, described it as a modern science lab.

“These are not dungeons,” she said. “We are not doing anything horrible here.”

She had few allies. The only elected official who denounced the fear-mongering was Sheriff Gregory Tony, who decried “rumors and political agendas,” despite being a Holness supporter. In a tone of frustration, Tony, Broward’s first Black sheriff, said: “We’re not going to do anything to compromise the safety of this community.”

Tony envisioned a mentorship program for disadvantaged kids, using the complex as a science-based center for the neighborhood. The whole point of greater Black representation in Broward is to bring those dreams to life and diminish community tensions.

But Tony’s was a lone voice. Commissioners offered no support to the sheriff or another advocate, county administrator Bertha Henry, who said she chose to send her own sons to Dillard High and that the center would nurture future careers in robotics, toxicology and other fields.

There is no question that environmental racism is a shameful part of America’s legacy, and Broward’s. Not far from this project site, residents lived for decades near a Fort Lauderdale incinerator that spewed toxins throughout Black neighborhoods and made people sick with cancers and other medical problems.

Not until last year did the city finally agree to pay damages to another incinerator’s many victims exposed to poisonous chemicals over several decades. And it’s not lost on anyone that a controversial public works project is never built in an affluent white community.

Residents are understandably wary, but this forensic center is different.

It would be a high-tech, environmentally sensitive “green” building with nearly 300 well-paid professionals, including scientists and investigators. But it’s clearly not well understood by enough residents — and that’s a failure of the county’s education efforts, not the public’s imagination. Anything that can be labeled a “morgue” has serious public perception problems.

The county PowerPoint presentation promised a future with “community prosperity.” That sounds a lot like Holness’ campaign slogan of “prosperity for all.”

The project awaits a final vote Nov. 4, so it won’t compete with Tuesday’s special election for Congress. But in this case, politics have already intruded enough.