Miami Herald walking on egg shells by gimleteye

We read the coverage of the Miami Herald this morning, of yesterday’s events at County Hall, the election of Dim Bruno as county commission chair, the anger of commissioners at citizens repelled by their unethical practices, and its editorial urging the commission to strengthen the Ethics Commission.

We have a spot of empathy for the logic contortions Herald editors and executives are twisting themselves into, to justify their opposition to the strong mayor, finally scheduled for a county-wide vote by the obstinate county commission for late January 2007.

Here is what we read between the lines of the Miami Herald:

For the September election for county commission, Miami Herald executives decided that none of the challengers could overcome the permanent incumbency.

The paper urged its readers and the public to "resist the urge to throw the bums out", in spite of serial scandals, hoping as it is hoping in today's editorial, to nudge the majority of county commissioners toward responsible conduct.

It is a fool’s errand.

A majority of the thirteen members of the county commission are making a better case for a strong mayor than Mayor Carlos Alvarez could ever make himself.

The Herald would do better to unleash the pent-up disgust and frustration of voters by meshing the conclusions of its investigative reporting with its editorial content.

What the Herald is missing—and what Miami Today fails to see, too—is that the county commission system of government has destroyed progress where day-to-day decisions are actually made in our government: at the department level.

You cannot reform the power drunk, you cannot stop the scandals, you cannot stop the corruption until there is a clear line of responsibility from an executive mayor, through the county manager, to department heads.

Herald executives are worried that voters will elect a despot. Don’t Herald executives know, that we have one now? Her name is Natacha Seijas.

Yesterday, the majority of commissioners elected a new chair, Bruno Barreiro.

Seijas—facing a recall election in her own district—nominated Dim Bruno to chair, having secured her votes beforehand, and then passed two other measures to top off her tanks.

Seijas plans to tame voter revolt against her in Hialeah by spreading lies that county funding for seniors will vanish if voters give her the heave-ho.

And so yesterday, in a fit of spite reinforced by other nervous commissioners, Seijas went ahead and changed the rules of gathering petition signatures for referendum campaigns so that it is impossible for citizens to ever revolt again—and adding a provision against petition gatherers telling “lies”.

So here you have it: county commissioners running the largest county budget in Florida, lead by Seijas and run by developers, spending taxpayer dollars to defeat citizen initiatives and suppress the distortion of truth which they have perfected in the domination of their own fiefdoms.

On January 23rd, Miami-Dade citizens will have the chance to vote, ‘yes’, for a strong mayor of Miami-Dade county and restore a glimmer of hope that public officials and government departments will be held accountable to the public interest.

Miami Herald editors and executives appear to have already made up their minds.

If they would step from their ivory tower soon to be condo in the sky, or ask their reporters to tell them what is really going on in county departments, they would come around to seeing county government as we do: a cesspit that needs a strong dose of lime that commissioners will never administer themselves.

We know what they will say: our reporters have good sources in county government.

No, Herald executives, you don't.

The reason is that over the years the Herald has reported so poorly on local news, that county employees are afraid to talk.

They don't see the point in it. You are dreaming, Miami Herald editors and executives, if you believe the county commission system of government can be reformed.

The last Herald reporter to have gold-plated sources at the county was Jim Defede, and we know what happened there.