Miami’s newest city commissioner is flexing his muscle as the chairman of an anti-blight district by moving to replace the agency’s head with the top administrator at the Village of El Portal.
Commissioner Ken Russell recommended in a memorandum last week that his colleagues support him in removing Pieter Bockweg as the $150,000-a-year executive director of the Omni Community Redevelopment Agency. Bockweg has run the agency since 2010, a six-year period in which the CRA built a $14.5 million film studio, renovated a historic firehouse and provided financial assistance to both the Pérez Art Museum Miami and the construction of the PortMiami Tunnel.
Russell, however, says the tax-funded agency failed in one crucial area: affordable housing.