Health clinic to move back to Bahama Village

Health clinic to move back to Bahama Village

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

Breaking a promise made in 1997 to let a Bahama Village community group install a black educators’ museum in the former Frederick Douglass Band Room, Key West City officials are moving ahead with leasing the space to the Monroe County Health Department for a medical clinic.

The county Roosevelt Sands Health Clinic had operated for years in a space adjacent to the Frederick Douglass Gym in Bahama Village. But it was forced to relocate to the Gato Building last year when renovations to the gym expanded to the point where the clinic could no longer function in the construction zone.

City commissioners agreed last year to spend $247,000 to “white box” the city-owned dilapidated band room building around the corner from the gym, creating a shell that could then be built out. But while county health officials hoped to move into the space, it was claimed by members of the Frederick Douglass School Black Educators’ Memorial Project, who hoped to install a museum honoring the history of black teachers in Key West. In 1997, commissioners passed a resolution calling for $261,000 to be spent to renovate the old band room for use by the memorial project. But that plan never moved ahead.

When it became apparent that the health clinic was going to be forced out of its Bahama Village office, however, that set up a dispute between it and the black educators’ project. The clinic has traditionally focused on children’s health, particularly children in Bahama Village. In addition to administering the federally-funded Women, Infants and Children nutrition program, the clinic gives vaccinations to most of the children living south of the Seven Mile Bridge, according to Bob Eadie, Administrator and Health Officer for Monroe County.

“That building is very important to me personally,” Eadie said. “We need to see how we can stay in that [Bahama Village] community. There is a real commitment to stay there.”

City officials in the past year had suggested that the two groups compromise and share the space. But City Commissioner Clayton Lopez, who represents Bahama Village and also works for the county health department, said no compromise was acceptable to the black educators’ group.

“I removed myself from the whole equation. It was becoming too political and too much about me and not the whole community,” said Lopez, who was publicly criticized by memorial project group members for allegedly reneging on the city’s promise to give them the space. “That didn’t serve the community.”

Eadie said he is working with city planners on preliminary plans that will lead to a lease agreement. The lease is needed before the county can apply for state funding to build the clinic in the “white boxed” band room. No cost estimates have been finalized yet but Eadie said it could take 12 to 18 months for the clinic to be moved back to Bahama Village.

“We are moving ahead,” he said. “We have to build it up from ground zero. As of now, it’s just a shell.”

One new service Eadie is exploring offering at the clinic is dental care. Eadie said county health officials are “giving a hard look” to having a dentist at the clinic when it reopens.

It is also possible that the clinic could reopen its doors sooner than the 12 to 18-month prediction. However, since most of the money will have to come from the state coffers, Eadie said he is being conservative with his timeline.

“As soon as we get the plans done, then we can move ahead. There is a process and it is a bureaucracy,” he said.

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