Homeowners and Tenants Association wants to increase membership

To a Homeowners and Tenants Association agenda filled with pressing items, community activist Lottie Person wanted to raise one more issue – membership.

“Don’t let this organization go down any further,” said Person in an appeal to about 15 members in attendance at the Jan. 25 meeting.

Person, first vice president of the association and a recently retired member of the Cocoanut Grove Village Council, pleaded with members to encourage more Village West residents to attend the group’s meetings, which are held on the fourth Monday of every month.

“Help us; we need it,” she said.

HOATA, which is more than 25 years old, comprises about 300 members, said the group’s second vice president, Jihad Rashid. Unlike other homeowner groups, membership includes a mix of homeowners, tenants and business owners.

Annual memberships arre $25 per household and $50 for businesses.

Pierre Sands, HOATA president, agrees that the group is in a down cycle, citing jobs and the economy as reasons why people aren’t putting in the effort.

“All of the community organizations right now have taken a hit because of the economy,” he said. “But we’re going to be here, and we’re going to do good work.”

“This is typical for a homeowner’s association,” he said. “If nobody shows up, that’s a problem. But we had people show up.”

Rashid, who also is president of the Coconut Grove Collaborative, agreed.

“Every organization goes through cycles,” he said, noting that recent previous meetings have attracted more than 40 members. “The real measure is the productivity and the results we get on behalf of the community.”

One of the issues HOATA approved at its January meeting was support for a controversial resolution passed 5-2 last month by the Cocoanut Grove Village Council. The council recommended repealing a 3 a.m. alcohol cutoff time in the Grove ‘s central business district. Previously, alcohol sales ended at 5 a.m. before Miami City Commissioner Marc Sarnoff proposed the change in 2008. His rationale, he said, was to curb crime and drunken driving incidents. But at least one business in the central Grove, Mr. Moes, has said the shorter hours have hurt his business, which owner John El-Masry said has dropped by 40 percent.

Both Village Council representatives from the West Grove – Stephen Murray and Renita Ross Samuels-Dixon – were among the five who agreed that it would be better to reinstate the 5 a.m. bar closing permits in the Grove.

The issue has gone to the full Miami City Commission, which is conducting a citywide review of bar closings, which range, commissioners say, from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. to 7 a.m.

Neighborhood Resource Officer Leonardo Carrillo told HOATA members that crime incidents in Coconut Grove were down by nine fewer crimes from the previous year. And of the 20 burglaries committed so far in January, only three were in the West Grove.

The next meeting of the Homeowners and Tenants Association will take place at 7 p.m. Feb. 22 at the Frankie Rolle Community Center, 3750 S. Dixie Hwy.