Racial tensions surface in North Miami Beach commission races

NORTH MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – Candidates are stoking racial flames in one South Florida city as commission races get heated ahead of the November election.

North Miami Beach’s city commission races have become downright nasty.

Vandals dismantled Phyllis Smith’s campaign signs and painted Jay Chernoff’s face on his signs.

“I wrote an email (about the vandalism) to the (city) manager two weeks ago, nothing is done,” Smith said.

They’re the latest in a string of accusations pitting candidate versus candidate, commissioner versus commissioner. Currently, four are Haitian-American, three are not.

“There is a fight (at) every commission meeting,” Chernoff said. “I served 19 years, never had a fight on the dais.”

The recent public fights involved Commissioner Paule Villard using a city gift card giveaway to campaign and directing staff to credit her name on city water bill rebates.

Then, on fellow candidate Hans Mardy’s Creole-language radio program, she made inflammatory comments about race.

“We have been suffering,” Villard said. “There was whites only who were responsible the majority of North Miami Beach.”

She continued: “Even if it’s someone in your home and that person is not for Haitian, don’t vote for that person. That person wants to put the white people on their back.”

Local 10 News reporter Glenna Milberg asked candidate Wrendly Mesidor, who is running for a different seat, how he perceived that statement as a Haitian man.

“I personally find that discriminatory,” Mesidor said. “It should not be like that. I find it (to be) dirty politics. It shouldn’t be like that.”

Mesidor was at a candidate at a forum this week where Mardy stoked the flames of race and ethnicity.

“You make it look like Port-au-Prince against Tel Aviv, this is the reality,” Mardy said.

“What does that mean, ‘Tel Aviv?’” an audience member interjected.

City Commissioner Fortuna Smukler expressed her disappointment.

“Our slogan is ‘one vision, one mission, one city,’” she said. “We’re not.”