Parks Bond Languishes

Around that time, Dorothy Quintana, the tireless 98-year-old activist for whom the center is named, asked Mayor Manny Diaz to strip her name from the building. He assured her the project would be completed within months. It wasn't. "I don't believe anything they say," comments Quintana. Her name — or actually only a handful of scattered letters — remains on the building.

Luis De Rosa, president of the Puerto Rican Chamber of Commerce, spent years on the bond oversight board. He says he was ashamed of the lack of progress, so he relocated baseball games he had scheduled for the park. In 2006, he refused to show the place to Clemente's son, Luis. "It's an embarrassment to the city," De Rosa says. "The issue is [the capital improvements department]. The folks in that office can't realize what the name of Roberto Clemente means to the City of Miami."

Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, who represents part of Wynwood, is the latest politician to make big promises about Roberto Clemente Park. He spoke with about 50 residents at Iglesia Bautista de Wynwood, a humble church, in December. When an organizer from Miami en Acción, a grassroots effort of the Miami Workers Center, pressed for answers about the ignored park, Sarnoff peeled off the headphones feeding a translation and stood abruptly.

"Now, where I come from in Brooklyn, good manners is that you don't make demands," he scolded. "You make requests."

Sarnoff later pledged he would try to look for more money to add a gym along with the $1.8 million already set aside for the center. "If you wait awhile, I'll get a Cadillac," he affirmed, promising an even better park.

The city says it's now designing a 10,000-square-foot building with a computer room, an indoor basketball court, and space for about 300 children. Of course, it's unclear whether that will ever happen. The new estimated price tag is $3.9 million, so the city still has to find $2 million to complete the project.

Responds Quintana: "Seeing is believing. Hay que ver para creer."