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RESOLUTION APPROVING NAMING THE COMMUNITY CENTER AT OAK GROVE PARK LOCATED AT 690 NE 159TH STREET IN DISTRICT 2 AS THE �FATHER GERARD JEAN-JUSTE COMMUNITY CENTER�, AFTER A PUBLIC HEARING, AND DIRECTING THE COUNTY MAYOR OR MAYOR�S DESIGNEE TO UNDERTAKE, AS PART OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE FACILITY, THE INSTALLATION OF AN APPROPRIATE MARKER INDICATING THE DESIGNATION AND NAME OF THE FACILITY

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WHEREAS, Father Gerard Jean-Juste was a Roman Catholic Priest, a rector of Saint Claire�s church for the poor in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and the founder and director of the Haitian Refugee Center in Miami where he was a fierce and vocal advocate for Haitians seeking asylum in the United States; and
WHEREAS, Father Gerard Jean-Juste was born in 1946 in Cavaillon, Haiti, studied for the Catholic priesthood in Canada, and in 1971 became the first Haitian ordained as a Catholic priest in the United States in a ceremony at the Church of St. Avila in Brooklyn where he was a deacon; and
��WHEREAS, back in the United States, while serving at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston, he obtained bachelor degrees in engineering technology and civil engineering from Northeastern University; and
WHEREAS, Father Jean-Juste founded the Miami-based Haitian Refugee Center in the 1970s in order to help Haitian refugees, to protest government immigration laws and to fight local discrimination against Haitians who, despite fleeing from the political turmoil and extreme poverty in Haiti to seek asylum in the United States, were put into detention centers and, in all but a small number of cases, sent back to Haiti; and
�WHEREAS, in 1980, the Haitian Refugee Center won an important victory in federal court when a federal district court ruled that the federal government had committee �wholesale violations of due process� and shown racial bias in ordering mass deportations of Haitian refugees, and the Court ordered that new hearings be held for more than 4,000 Haitian refugees represented by the class-action lawsuit; and
�WHEREAS, Father Jean-Juste returned to Haiti in 1991, greatly in support of the democratically-elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and became the rector at the Church of Saint Claire in Port-au-Prince where he operated a soup kitchen to feed the poor which continues to operate till this day; and
�WHEREAS, Father Jean-Juste, or �Father Gerry� as he was often called, died in Miami on May 27, 2009; and
WHEREAS, Father Jean-Juste is hailed as a defender of the human rights of Haitians and it is only appropriate that Miami should honor his legacy in the same neighborhood from where he, for many years, fought and was a tireless crusader for social justice for Haiti�s poor,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FLORIDA, that this Board, after a public hearing, desires to honor Father Gerard Jean-Juste�s legacy by approving the naming of the community center at Oak Grove Park located at 690 NE 159th Street in District 2 as the �Father Gerard Jean-Juste Community Center� and further directs the County Mayor or Mayor�s designee to undertake, as part of the construction of the community center, the installation of an appropriate marker indicating the designation and name of the facility.