Opa-locka city manager resigns from nonprofit after ethics official cries foul
When the Opa-locka City Commission voted to hire Darvin Williams as interim city manager in April, there was no mention that he was the founder of a nonprofit pursuing a multimillion-dollar development project in the city.
But after Miami-Dade’s top ethics official said there was “far too much overlap” between Williams’ public and private roles, the city manager said he was stepping away from Wellspring Community Resources, an organization that is building a healthcare and affordable housing complex in Opa-locka.
“Although I shall always be the founder of this great nonprofit, I shall no longer be an active member of its board or associated with it in any capacity,” Williams said in a June 8 email to the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust.
Williams’ action came after weeks of back and forth with the ethics commission’s executive director, Jose Arrojo, who concluded that Williams was violating the county ethics code by serving as city manager while being associated with Wellspring. Williams had contacted Arrojo seeking guidance on the matter in early May, about a month after he was hired as city manager.
The Wellspring project is expected to cost $33 million and include a 44,000-square-foot medical office and wellness center and over 100 affordable housing units at a site that once housed the Jackson North Maternity Center, according to the South Florida Business Journal.
Williams co-founded Wellspring Community Resources in 2019, shortly after he was fired as an Opa-locka assistant city manager. The nonprofit has since been pursuing a “community complex” that combines healthcare services and affordable housing, reaching a deal with Miami-Dade County in 2020 to build the complex on county land in Opa-locka.
The county has granted Wellspring $2.8 million for project infrastructure. The Opa-locka City Commission approved site plans for a senior housing facility last year.
In a city trying to shed its reputation as one of the most corrupt in Florida and now six years into state financial oversight, it’s not yet clear if Williams’ resignation from the nonprofit will satisfy concerns about a conflict of interest.
A former city manager, John Pate, filed a complaint with the ethics commission in late April saying that a city commissioner, Sherelean Bass, pressured him to commit to directing city funds toward infrastructure needs for the Wellspring project if she agreed to support him being rehired as city manager.
Pate says he refused and Bass supported Williams for city manager instead. At an April 6 meeting, commissioners voted to fire Interim Manager James Wright. A proposal to rehire Pate was rejected and Bass suggested the city hire Williams, which was unanimously approved.
Pate’s ethics complaint was dismissed last week without an investigation after the ethics commission ruled it was not “legally sufficient.”
Bass did not respond to requests for comment.
Williams placed an item on the May 25 commission agenda that would have allocated about $240,000 toward a contract for drainage improvements on Northwest 147th Street adjacent to the Wellspring project.
But he announced at the start of the meeting that he wished to defer the item and asked for ethics guidance.
“I do not want to proceed with any semblance of any impropriety before receiving a written opinion from your office,” Williams said in a June 2 email to Arrojo, the county ethics director.
Leaky water pipes beneath the road adjacent to the project site — located at 14701 Northwest 27th Ave. — regularly cause it to flood. Williams shared footage with the Herald showing several inches of standing water on the road after a tropical disturbance earlier this month.
Miami Herald staff writer David Ovalle contributed to this report.
This story was originally published June 15, 2022 at 12:25 PM.
