Letters from the Issue of June 6, 2002

Freedom of expression -- what a concept!

Comments (0) Thursday, Jun 6 2002

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Every day I worked with Christina Cuervo, police Chief Donald De Lucca, the county's Larry Capp, and Tom Battles from the Department of Justice. We all worked very hard to make Memorial Day weekend a success. Brett and New Times tried to undermine that process, and in my opinion that was wrong. I would like to go on record as saying that I felt the plan that Christina Cuervo and the City of Miami Beach put together, in conjunction with our original plan, was a good one.

Why didn't Brett like the fact that a good plan was coming together? I just don't get it. Maybe he wanted to have a big melee, a big riot. That is not what I was trying to do. I am bringing the hip-hop generation and the R&B generation down here. People are spending a lot of money to enjoy Miami Beach and have a good time. There was no reason for New Times to hype up the residents over something that did not need hype. You acted like these people were terrorists about to flip the Beach over. That wasn't the case. These people have credit cards, jobs, and are paying the highest rates for hotels and events. They spend cash money in our malls and restaurants.

New Times has done nothing but try to cause tension between the African-American community and the City of Miami Beach. That needs to stop.

Luther Campbell

Miami

Erratum

Owing to an editing error, the photograph accompanying Kirk Nielsen's article "Insurgent Billboards" (May 23), featuring lobbyist Dusty Melton, was not labeled as a photo-illustration as it should have been. New Times regrets the error.