Orlando seeks to build new consensus around fractured Pulse memorial effort

Ryan Gillespie, Orlando Sentinel
Updated ·3 min read
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Hoping to build consensus around the long-disputed Pulse memorial effort, Orlando has decided its best first move is to step aside.

Mayor Buddy Dyer announced Tuesday that the city has hired a professional facilitator to engage the community in a memorial design. The move is the first tangible step Orlando has taken since buying the former Pulse nightclub, site of a 2016 mass shooting, late last year from the failing onePulse nonprofit that previously led memorial planning.

Invitations from facilitator Larry Schooler, who runs Public Participation Partners, went out Monday evening to various survivors and families of the shooting, asking them to participate in meetings, interviews and discussions with Schooler and his team.

The company will be paid a maximum of $88,735 for its work expected to last several months, records show. The aim is to reveal a conceptual design by the end of the year, Mayor Buddy Dyer said.

“I know it may seem far-fetched to imagine that we can craft a consensus vision for the memorial,” Schooler said Tuesday, in a news conference announcing the outreach, which he joined via video feed. “That said I’m with you here today because I believe that is both possible and probable with our shared efforts.”

For nearly eight years since the shooting that killed 49 and wounded dozens more, much of the Pulse community has been frustrated by the lack of progress toward a memorial, with the city drawing at least some of the mistrust bubbling among various groups.

The mayor said by hiring Schooler, who worked on memorial efforts in Virginia Beach and San Leandro, Calif., the city hopes to bring more voices to the table.

“The process we’re running now today we hope addresses that,” Dyer said. “It’s not going to be a city-run process, it’s going to be run by a neutral facilitator.”

Last October, the city purchased the nightclub property for $2 million from its original owners Barbara and Rosario Poma. Orlando businessman Craig Mateer bought an adjacent property soon after and said he planned for it to be part of a future memorial.

onePulse had grand ambitions for a memorial on the nightclub site and a museum nearby, but struggled to raise anywhere close to the money it needed to fund both.

The city has no plans to pursue the museum idea, Dyer said.

Dyer said many decisions still need to be made, including what the memorial will look like, how much it will cost, how it would be paid for, and whether the nightclub would remain standing on the corner of Kaley Street and Orange Avenue. While onePulse commissioned renowned architects at significant expense to design a memorial and museum, the city has not committed to using any of their work.

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A Pulse memorial is likely to require at least some public financing, Dyer said. Following Schooler’s work, some family members and survivors will be asked to join a memorial design committee as well.

“The memorial shouldn’t be what I want it to be, it shouldn’t be what the commissioners want it to be,” Dyer said. “It should be – and it will be – what the families and survivors want it to be.”

Jorshua Hernández Carrión, a Pulse survivor, told the Sentinel Tuesday that he received an email from Schooler and plans to participate. However, building trust fractured by nearly eight years with minimal progress will be difficult, he said.

“I don’t want it to be the same as onePulse,” he said. “We want a memorial and we need to make sure the city hears our voices.”

Schooler’s team is expected to include Spanish speakers and others with ties to the LGBTQ community, he said in his proposal. The Pulse nightclub was a gathering spot for that community.

Dyer, who will serve as mayor until 2028, said he hopes to cut the ribbon on the memorial while he’s still in office.

“We need to remember the 49,” he said. “We need to honor them. Our entire community needs a place that they can go and remember.”

A prior version of this story misstated who the city purchased the Pulse property from.

rygillespie@orlandosentinel.com