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1655-4 African American/Black Boycott ❑ mh92 35 of 197, 1 Terms mh92 MAYOR GELBER SAYS 05/31/1992 THE MIAMI HERALD Copyright (c) 1992, The Miami Herald DATE: Sunday, May 31, 1992 EDITION: FINAL SECTION: NEIGHBORS MB PAGE: OPIN LENGTH: 73 lines SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: Herald Staff MEMO: OPINION MAYOR GELBER SAYS MIKVAH APPROVED AFTER LEGAL ADVICE Editor: Permit me an additional note on your Par Three Mikvah story last week. Although I do not speak for my colleagues, the issue for us was very clear. A prior City Commission cons ated a exchange of p operty involving a parcel of land encompassing a port on of ou. Par Three in exchange for a Hebrew Academy building. Deeds, transferring title, we e e .change. . The p. ior Ci y Commission, as well as the public, as aware .f the 'ntent o ' the Hebrew Academy to provide space for the mi 'v.. . Presumably, our predecessors ac ed as the did because th city had removed the mikvah from its present site and ha.. pro 'sed to he • f'nd a new home. Our city attorney advised the present City o - 'ssion that e deed transaction was final and no legal basis existed to repudiate the transfer of title to the Hebrew Academy. We acted upon his legal advice. Seymour Gelber Mayor Miami Beach BEACH MAYOR SHOULD DENOUNCE ORGANIZATION Editor: Sam Saferstein of the New Jewish Agenda adds a larger credibility problem to Mayor Gelber when he supports Gelber's cave-in to the black boycott. I wonder if Mayor Gelber and this supporters are pleased that he now is supported by an organization whose agenda is, among other items, to have all U.S. aid cut to Israel until it withdraws back to its 1967 borders? Many of the NJA members also support what Castro has done to Cuba. I have heard Jack Lieberman, a NJA member, talk on local talk shows about how much better Cuba is now that Castro heads that government. I have read the pamphlets of the NJA. It supports the African National Congress. It is pathetic that the New Jewish Agenda, Mayor Gelber and Nelson Mandela are all Boys in the Hood together. I call on Mayor Gelber to renounce the NJA's support at once, as George Bush did of David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan. Mayor Gelber is at least as wise our stupefied President. Harvey Slavin Aventura HOTELS SHOULD PAY RESORT TAXES WEEKLY Editor: I have a simple solution to the problem Miami Beach has with collecting resort taxes from certain restaurants and hotels. Why not require each hotel and restaurant to deposit on a weekly basis all of the collected resort tax revenues? This money belongs to the city, not to the respective businesses. This is similar to businesses depositing withholding taxes collected from their employees, as well as the matching funds they are required to pay. There is no requirement for a new city ordinance; such a step can be taken by administrative action. I believe the city can save tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars. To permit these businesses to become delinquent is not good business for city taxpayers. Gerald Schwartz Miami Beach TAG: 9205030487 96 of 197, 1 Terms mh92 BEACH 04/27/1992 THE MIAMI HERALD Copyright (c) 1992, The Miami Herald DATE: Monday, April 27, 1992 EDITION: FINAL SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: 1B LENGTH: 70 lines ILLUSTRATION: photo: Nelson MANDELA SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: RALPH DE LA CRUZ Herald Staff Writer BEACH TO HONOR MANDELA TODAY A proclamation by the city of Miami Beach declaring today as "Nelson Mandela Day" will be read at the Council of Foundations convention in Miami Beach, signaling a possible breakthrough in the 21-month-old convention boycott by black groups. "This is the first significant step that has been taken to redress the snubbing of Nelson Mandela, " said H.T. Smith, one of the organizers of Boycott Miami. He called the proclamation "the biggest success on political issues" that the boycott has had since the action began almost two years ago. "This just goes to show you that patience and perseverance pays off, " he said. The boycott began in July 1990, a month after government leaders in Miami, Miami Beach and Dade County refused demands from Smith and others to apologize for failing to officially welcome the South African civil-rights leader to the area. Boycott Miami has said it will continue to urge conventions to stay away until the perceived snub has been addressed by honoring Mandela and creating more opportunities for blacks in the tourism industry. "This is only one issue, but obviously a very important issue, " Smith said Sunday night. Smith said the move should increase pressure on Metro-Dade Mayor Steve Clark and Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez to make a similar gesture. "The ball is clearly in the court of Mayor Clark and Mayor Suarez, " Smith said. If they failed to do anything, he noted that the two could face retribution at the polls. Clark is up for re-election in September; Suarez's term expires in 1994. As a result of the Beach proclamation, sponsored by Mayor Seymour Gelber, the boycott committee called off planned picketing and demonstrations at the council's convention site, Smith said. About 15 or 20 picketers were outside the Fontainebleau Hilton on Sunday, but they agreed to halt their demonstration after learning of the proclamation. The proclamation is the result of intermediary efforts by the Council on Foundations, a national coalition of charitable organizations. The group opens its three-day convention today. The council was urged by the Boycott Miami organization to take its convention away from Miami Beach. Instead, the council came up with a twofold response. It decided to keep Miami Beach as the site of its annual convention. James A. Joseph, the council president, assured boycott organizers that the decision to keep the convention in Miami Beach was not a snub of the boycott or the local African-American community. He said the organization was simply choosing to use "strategies that are most efficient for our kind of organization. " Those strategies appear to have led to the proclamation. "We told the boycott committee from the very beginning that we thought we could do more by coming here than staying away, " Joseph said. Joseph met with Gelber last week to discuss the boycott. "They told me that they had withstood the pressure, but wanted the city to give an appropriate tribute, an appropriate gesture, to Mr. Mandela, " Gelber said. Gelber said in addition to the proclamation, Joseph would be given the Miami Beach Medallion of Honor on Wednesday. Joseph plans to personally present the medallion to Mandela in South Africa later this year. Joseph helped plan part of Mandela's trip to the U.S. in 1990. However, despite the proclamation and medallion, Gelber said that the honors should not be seen as a concession to the boycott. "I did not make an effort to publicize this, " Gelber said. "I have not discussed this with the boycott organizers and it's not part of any discussions or negotiations. I'm doing what I think I should do as far as Nelson Mandela is concerned. I'm trying to do the right thing. " KEYWORDS: MD MANDELA AWARD BLACK TAG: 9204250045 124 of 197, 10 Terms mh92 TOURIST BUREAU VP RESIGNS POST 03/19/1992 THE MIAMI HERALD Copyright (c) 1992, The Miami Herald DATE: Thursday, March 19, 1992 EDITION: FINAL SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: 1B LENGTH: 109 lines SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: TOM FIEDLER AND DAVID KIDWELL Herald Staff Writers MEMO: see end of text for TY STROH TOURIST BUREAU VP RESIGNS POST A top official of Dade's tourism agency resigned under fire Wednesday to "curtail any further destruction" from allegations the bureau is insensitive to blacks. Ty Stroh, 51, vice president of convention sales for the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau, was recently criticized for his bureau-paid membership in the once-segregated Riviera Country Club. Stroh insisted in a four-page resignation letter that he was "unequivocally not a racist." But he said his departure was the only way to end the controversy that has engulfed his boss, bureau President Merrett Stierheim. The dispute climaxed Monday when the Miami-Dade branch of the NAACP asked Stierheim to resign, primarily because of several incidents involving Stroh. "The damage caused by these incidents . . . to you and the bureau is disgraceful and very unfair, " Stroh wrote to Stierheim. "Sadly, I don't see any abatement of this from its architects or The Miami Herald. " It's not clear whether Stroh's decision will quell the controversy. NAACP President Johnnie McMillian said Wednesday that Stierheim himself should resign -- unless he can satisfy black demands for a greater role in the tourism industry. "No, this little sprinkle of something to keep our mouths closed isn't enough, " she said. "The heat goes up and they sacrifice the person most expendable." McMillian said the resignation was motivated by politics, not a commitment to reform. "All we want is for Merrett Stierheim to do his job, not to start firing people to look good, " she said. She urged him "to make blacks an integral part of the tourism industry. " By contrast, Miami lawyer H.T. Smith, leader of a 16-month- old effort to get black conventions to boycott Miami, said in an interview earlier Wednesday that Stroh -- not Stierheim -- was his main target. With Stroh out, Smith is optimistic the black community can negotiate for greater minority participation. For years, black leaders have said the tourism industry has denied blacks a fair share of business. Although the convention boycott headed by Smith was triggered by the political snub of South African anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in June 1990, many of the demands for redress centered on jobs in Dade's No. 1 industry -- tourism. Smith said he grew skeptical of Stroh's sensitivity to black issues in early 1991, when he learned of a memo from Stroh to Stierheim. Stroh criticized a black meeting planner who wanted to direct business to minority firms. 1 "This was an obvious act of reverse discrimination! " Stroh wrote. E The most recent controversy erupted when Stroh's membership in the formerly all-white Riviera Country Club became public last week. Stierheim , who authorized bureau money for Stroh's membership when he became president in January 1990, ordered the payments stopped last April, when U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Ryskamp was criticized for his membership. But Stierheim resumed the payments in September, after the club admitted its first black member. Also last fall, Stroh helped prepare a brochure for black meeting planners, touting greater Miami's amenities and citing improved minority participation. But that brochure was wrapped in a pre-printed "shell" that featured, along with scenes of Miami, pictures of three white or Hispanic models. In early February, one of the bureau's two black executive committee members, lawyer George Knox, resigned. He expressed frustrations with Stroh. Stroh, in his resignation letter, addressed many of those concerns, insisting none could independently be "construed in any way, shape or form as a racist action." He said the brochure was prepared with the help of three black bureau staffers -- Marc O'Ferrall, Milton Vickers and Akua Welsh -- "to make sure that the information in the brochure was accurate." He absolved Stierheim of any involvement, saying in his letter that he should have "requested a sign-off on the brochure by you and others before using it." He called his problems with Knox, the black board member, "a breakdown in communication, for which I apologized to him." Stroh was apologetic about his membership in the formerly segregated country club. "The Riviera Country Club issue was always a tentative situation, albeit dangerous, and if I had known that it would have caused even a 10th of what I've seen, it's for sure I never would have requested membership there," Stroh wrote. Stierheim said Wednesday he accepted the resignation "with regret and sadness." He asked Stroh to stay on until a replacement is found. Stroh did not return repeated telephone messages Wednesday seeking further comment on his resignation. Stierheim said the resignation was not part of a deal to mollify the NAACP or other critics. Stierheim conceded partial responsibility for the controversies. He said he should have reviewed the brochures before distribution, and shouldn't have permitted the Riviera membership. "If I had to make that decision all over again, I wouldn't have made the same decision, " he said of the club. "Let the masthead say, 'Stierheim made a bad decision. ' What more can I say?" * Age: 51. * Education: Bachelor's degree in business administration, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Wash. * Title: Vice president of convention sales, Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau. * Salary: $111,000 plus bonuses and perquisites. Stroh is in charge of the bureau's sales efforts for conventions and corporate meetings. He joined the bureau in 1988, after 10 years as vice president and general manager of the Greater Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau. From 1968 to 1978, he worked for the Westin Hotel chain, based in his home town of Seattle, where his titles included director of sales. KEYWORDS: STROH END QUOTE BOX AGE BIOGRAPHY BLACK TAG: 9204150248 4- Exit :4