Diversity in our Community

3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Camellia AB

The session seeks to build on the national dialogue regard- ing racism, discrimination and bias by understanding how these issues a ect local communities and CRAs from a redevelopment perspective. Primary topics of discussion will include economic development, community policing, food deserts/access to healthy foods, housing, disaster recovery and education/community bene ts plans. We will have topic tables and take notes to share with the whole group about the discussions. Attendees are encouraged to actively participate, come with an open mind and be ready to go back to their respective communities with concrete solutions for how they can better serve and transform them.

  

Moderator: Gerald Snell, Chairman of the Avon Park Southside Advisory Board
Group Leaders: Jeremy Earle, PhD, AICP, FRA-RA, Assistant City Manager, City of Hallandale Beach; Toni Shamplain, FRA-RA, Downtown North CRA Manager, City of Panama City; Ken Thomas, FRA Board Member, Director of Housing & Redevelopment, City of Leesburg; and Gerald Snell, Avon Park Southside Advisory Board

 

 

 

Jeremy Earle, Ph.D., AICP, FRA-RA, is an award-winning public and private sector professional with almost 20 years’ experience in the fields of redevelopment, development, urban planning/urban design, and economic development.  Dr. Earle is currently an Assistant City Manager with the City of Hallandale Beach, Florida, where he oversees activities relating to citywide economic development, redevelopment, development, grants, and human services.  In addition to being an award winning landscape architect and urban planner, he has also won numerous awards and accolades for the creation of programs relating to sustainability, redevelopment and economic development.  A program that he created for the City of Fort Lauderdale called BEAMs, which stands for Business Engagement, Assistance and Mentorships was selected as an International Economic Development Council (ICSC) Excellence in Economic Development Gold Award recipient for 2018.

Dr. Earle is considered by many to be an expert in the fields of redevelopment and revitalization of distressed urban communities.  He has considerable experience working in both the public and private sectors, as a consultant with a large engineering and design firm, an asset manager for a large national homebuilder, and in government in his former roles as Deputy Director for the Department of Sustainable Development in the City of Fort Lauderdale, and as the Executive Director for the Dania Beach Community Redevelopment Agency which is located in Broward County, Florida. Through his leadership, the City of Dania Beach is going through a tremendous renaissance, with major real estate development projects that are either currently under construction or completed. The public and private partnerships which he spearheaded will generate almost a billion dollars’ worth of private sector investment over the next few years and will create thousands of new jobs.

Dr. Earle, an innovator, is also at the forefront of providing local access to healthy foods and promoting economic development in distressed urban communities in Broward County through the creation of one of the nation’s first multijurisdictional governmental collaborations called PATCH ™ which stands for People’s Access to Community Horticulture. This joint effort between local government, the private sector and other non-governmental partners, seeks to utilize government or non-profit owned real estate in order to create a large sustainable market garden network in Broward County, which provides locally grown, non-GMO vegetables to local restaurants, create jobs, provide educational opportunities, and addresses community health and social issues.