DANIA MAYOR: UPROAR IS ABOUT POWER

When Robert Chunn's supporters asked him to run for a spot on Dania
Beach's City Commission, some say the city's power brokers only wanted
to dilute the black vote.

But Chunn, a former drug user turned community activist, may have
surprised even his staunchest supporters with his showing at the polls
in the March 2001 election.

He parlayed his anti-drug message into the second-highest vote total
in last year's election -- which meant that he automatically would be
the city's mayor the second year of his term.

Apparently stunned by his success, some of his supporters asked him
not to accept the mayor's post, arguing that Chunn, a welder with no
high school diploma and no political background, needed more
experience before taking on the city's highest elected position.

Now, charges of racism are flying, pitting former friends and allies
against each other.

Chunn, who is black, recently accused two white city board members of
using a racial slur, once at a City Commission meeting and once last
year at a liquor store.

But, the controversy is more about power than race, Chunn said. He
says his refusal to go along with a request from longtime power
brokers to bypass the mayoral post has put him in the hot seat. Now,
he is fighting back.

"It's not just about black and white," he said. "It's about anyone
who doesn't go along."

He accuses one of his biggest supporters, community activist Sophia
Steele, of making racist comments and of participating in a plot to
prevent him from taking his rightful place as mayor.

Steele denies that she ever made racial slurs and believes the city --
23.7 percent black -- should have a black representative on the commission.

She says her only concern is that Chunn, a political novice, needed
more experience and training on the commission before taking the
mayoral seat.

"There is no racial issue," said Steele, 62. "He's trying to make
his own racial issue . . . Why would the white people put him there if
they were racial? I support him 110 percent. That's why I worked so
hard for him. But I could not support him being mayor not being
qualified or [having] enough government experience."

Chunn says Steele gave him a slightly different explanation.

"What she told me is I wasn't qualified. I wasn't capable," Chunn
said. "She told my wife that. She never said anything to me about me
learning how to do anything. If she had put it like that, that would
have kind of made sense."

Chunn said Steele only wanted him to run in order to defeat another
black candidate, former Mayor Bobbie Grace, who lost by only six votes.

"She wanted to try to use me," Chunn said. "That was the plan. It
wasn't my plan."

Grace, who served on the commission from 1989 to 1996, said she also
believes that Chunn's supporters only wanted him to run to split the
black vote.

"He was used, and I think he knows that he was used," Grace said.
"Now I think they regret it. But it's too late now."

Members of the black community threw their support behind Grace.
Chunn, on the other hand, got much of his support from whites.

Some black residents say Chunn is now getting his just desserts for
helping whites defeat a black candidate who worked hard to improve
Dania Beach's struggling, predominantly black west side.

Grace said Chunn's only work in the black community was with Turn
Around Dania Beach, of which Steele is now the coordinator.

"There hasn't even been a lot of sympathy for him," said Robert
McCoy, who lives above his barber shop on Northwest First Street. Now,
"he's reaping what he sowed."

Even so, "There is no place in society for bigotry or racism," Grace
said.

"If it attacks one group, it attacks all groups. And we don't need
that. Especially when we're trying to build and mold a community of
leaders."