CRA official approved grant for her mother’s home. Now she’s out of a job, mom owes $20K

The former interim executive director of the North Miami Community Redevelopment Agency signed off on a grant from her organization for improvements to a home she lived in with her mother, according to documents obtained by the Miami Herald.

Now, Andrea McDonald, 74, has to pay back money owed to the CRA, and her daughter, Gayle McDonald, is out of a job, resigning June 13 amid a state investigation into the North Miami CRA.

“I wanted to just go ahead and just remove myself quietly, because I didn’t want this situation to affect others who legitimately are eligible to apply and receive the services that the CRA has offered,” Gayle McDonald said recently during an interview inside the renovated home she lives in with her mom. Her mother was not home at the time of the interview.

McDonald’s resignation came after the Herald filed a public records request seeking documents related to her mother’s CRA grant application.

In 2021, Andrea McDonald received a $20,000 grant from the North Miami CRA for upgrades to her home, which included a new driveway, a fresh paint job, a new front porch and a new fence leading to the backyard. At the time she applied for the grant, McDonald did not disclose that her daughter, Gayle McDonald, 38, was the CRA’s interim executive director and that her daughter lived with her.

READ MORE: ‘They thought I was dead:’ North Miami mayor had seizure-like symptoms on Africa trip

In June 2022, the CRA hired a permanent executive director and Gayle McDonald was named director of operations, with a salary of $120,000, a position she held until June 13. She was making about $150,000 as the interim director.

Built in 1953, the three-bedroom home, which sits on a 6,930 square-foot lot in the Mansionette Homes subdivision of North Miami, was purchased by Andrea McDonald in 1990 for $76,400, according to Miami-Dade County property records.

The circumstances raise concerns about how the North Miami CRA distributes grants and whether employees can partake in the programs intended for residents if they’re living within CRA boundaries. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement confirmed to the Herald in a July 28 email it has an active investigation into the CRA but did not disclose details.

“The NMCRA has and continues to cooperate fully with the FDLE investigation and has been advised to provide no further comment on this,” the North Miami CRA’s current executive director, Anna-Bo Emmanuel, wrote in an email in response to questions sent by the Herald.

Nova Southeastern University law professor and ethics expert Bob Jarvis said failing to add her daughter on the application was a “clumsy omission” on the part of Andrea McDonald and that it “does not sound like an innocent error or mistake.”

“It is very suspicious that the paperwork does not list her as being in the home. And that’s not the type of question that there can later be said to have been any confusion about,” he said. “I mean, it’s a very straightforward question: who is living in this home? And obviously a mother would not forget that her daughter was living with her.”

Gayle McDonald said her mother was sent a letter indicating she must repay the grant money. In an Aug. 1 email to Emmanuel, City Manager Rasha Cameau and other city staff, CRA attorney Steven Zelkowitz said a repayment plan and agreement had not yet been drafted and would have to be voted on by the CRA board.

“You really wonder why it was done, especially if the director knew that, ‘Hey, we have plenty of money, and everybody’s gonna get it,’ ” Jarvis said. “It seems like she really went out of her way to create a problem and to create a question about her integrity, where she didn’t have to do so.”

CRA function and funding

Community redevelopment agencies are typically established by local governments to fund development or improvement projects, such as increasing affordable housing, fighting blight or building commercial and residential developments.

North Miami’s CRA is funded through tax increment financing from the city and Miami-Dade County. The agency had a $15.6 million budget for fiscal year 2020-21, and of those funds $750,000 were budgeted for the newly established Residential Rehabilitation Grant Program. Residents in the CRA district could apply for grant funding for projects ranging from exterior paint to installing impact windows and doors.

The specific grant Andrea McDonald applied for was a Beautification Program for Owner-Occupied Single-Family, according to her application. The program allows residents to receive up to $20,000 for exterior improvements.

That program along with three other grant programs were unanimously approved at an April 13, 2021 CRA meeting and went into effect two days after approval. Prior to the new grants, the North Miami CRA funded the Single Family Rehab Program, which was initially under the city’s housing division, according to a memo detailing grant guidelines.

On the application, Andrea McDonald completed, residents were required to list their income, the people living in the home, assets, and provide copies of bank statements and other items.

The agency received 70 applications but narrowed the pool to 60 after determining eligibility based on who resided within the CRA boundary. A lottery was held October 20, 2021 to determine the order grant recipients would receive funds for work on their homes. The first 37 grant recipients were covered by the $750,000 allocated funds, and the remaining recipients’ grants were covered from funds budgeted in the ‘21-22 fiscal year.

Of the 60, Andrea McDonald ranked No. 53.

Issue of ethics

CRAs are bound to Florida’s open meeting and ethics laws. Public officers and employees are prohibited from using or attempting to use their position to obtain a special privilege or benefit for themselves or others.

Frank Schnidman, a retired professor of urban and regional planning at Florida Atlantic University, said the biggest issue is disclosure. Schnidman served as founding executive director of the North Miami CRA in 2005 and has been a consultant to the agency.

“On its face, any government employee that personally benefits from a decision to give government money should be disclosing that they are in fact the recipient of those funds,” he said.

Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics & Public Trust general counsel Loressa Felix echoed those sentiments, saying, “when you are trying to contract with the agency, or the municipality that you work with, generally speaking, we tell people that you can’t do that.”

CRAs are required to have four hours of training, per year, in the area of ethics, public records and open meetings, according to the Florida Commission on Ethics. Lynn Blais, a spokeswoman for the state ethics commission, said someone found in violation of an ethics law could face public censure or reprimand or a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per violation.

“They could be removed from their position, but the most common outcome is the public censure and reprimand or a civil penalty,” she said.

The Florida Commission on Ethics would neither confirm nor deny if an investigation is active.

North Miami Councilwoman Kassandra Timothe, who sits on the CRA board with the other members of city council, said it’s not uncommon for city employees to apply for grants from the CRA.

“There’s several employees who apply for programs within the city because there are residents and they are dutifully allowed to. The issue was just her signing off,” she said. “That was the only error that I saw from this whole process.”

Emmanuel said there is no prohibition on city employees receiving grants from the North Miami CRA provided they meet the guidelines.

City manager Cameau, who was executive director of the CRA before the board appointed Gayle McDonald, echoed those sentiments. “I would say about a dozen over the last 10 years have received city grants,” Cameau wrote in an email.

Timeline of events

Gayle McDonald began working with the North Miami CRA in 2016 as a grants coordinator. She held that position until December 2019, according to records, when she was promoted to programs and operations manager. She was appointed interim executive director in December 2021. The temporary position carried a salary of $150,508.80, a $300 monthly car allowance, and $200 monthly phone allowance.

Gayle told the Herald her mom applied for and received a rehabilitation grant before her temporary promotion to interim executive director. Andrea McDonald’s application is dated for Dec. 20, 2021. but she was among those in Oct. 20 drawing. Cameau said the page with the December date was the checklist page, that staff would use to review if the application met the guidelines and is not the date of the application.

Gayle McDonald said she did not process her mother’s application, instead deferring to a colleague in the office. “But I was interim, so anything that needed to be signed off on to move forward, I signed off on it,” she said.

Councilman Scott Galvin described Andrea McDonald as “a bedrock of the community” and active in city causes. “So she certainly was the last person you’d expect to have gotten wrapped up in [this],” he said.

Timothe said she was disheartened by the news of Gayle McDonald’s resignation. “These are employees that have stellar backgrounds, very professional, they work very hard. And so sometimes you make one mistake or you made this one error and it’s like your whole reputation can be tarnished because of one mistake.”

In hindsight, Gayle McDonald said, she wouldn’t have signed off on the grant application. “I probably would just put that to the side and just wait for the permanent executive director to come and approve,” she said.