David Beckham returns to Miami
|David Beckham’s return to Miami to celebrate Major League Soccer approving the city for a new team, community organizers in Overtown are trying to rally residents against building a 25,000-seat stadium there.
Organizers are sending out fliers that resemble eviction notices to public housing residents near the planned stadium site, where Beckham and partners have said they plan to use private dollars to build an open-air stadium by 2021 to house the MLS expansion team.
“Everybody is excited about major league soccer coming to Miami,” said Bishop James Adams, of the St. John Institutional Missionary Baptist Church. “I don’t have an issue with them coming to Miami. I have an issue with the stadium being plopped into Overtown and the potential displacement of 200 more families, being pushed out.”
Adams is the leading voice in Overtown against the Beckham soccer plan and acknowledged his group sent out the fliers on yellow paper with “Eviction Notice Pending?” on the top. The fliers, which promote a community meeting on Thursday, have the design of a government form, but the county is calling them bogus and based on faulty information.