The new Commissioner in the City of Miami, Marc Sarnoff, is generating a lot of comments, especially regarding his choice of staff. I decided to start a new thread for City of Miami (CIOMI) readers. (See Post December 4th). Also, what do readers think of the Mercy Hospital Development outlined in today's Miami Herald? Condos may rise behind Mercy Hospital
CIOMI readers – I ask this of you all: Please read our posts on the County. As long as the arrogant County Commission does business as usual -- we all suffer. Citizens wearing blinders to what is going on in the whole of Miami Dade County is going to bite us all in the ass. We are seeing hundred of millions of our county tax dollars wasted or stolen.
The rotting rat is there even if you avert your eyes!
Look at how much you pay in taxes to the County. Got your tax bill handy? I pay a third of my taxes to the county. So, gentle CIOMI readers, put some of that angst and especially those good ideas to the County and its (mostly) wretched Commissioners.
During the days of Plummer/Clark and Ceasar Odio, the City of Miami was the Evil Empire but the County has that distinction now. See Michael Putney editorial today (another winner) It's time to restructure county government
13 comments:
We will judge Marc Sarnoff by how he votes. His first commission meeting will be Dec 14th. And Marc will be judged by well he helps his Dist 2 constituents. Marc will also have to act honorably toward all Miami residents.
Mercy Hospital Incompetence Must Not Be Rewarded
Mercy Hospital is using the justification for selling their property to a developer because they say they need the money for improvement.
If Mercy is not already self sufficient after all these years in business as a not-for-profit without paying taxes, what makes them think that a few million bucks will make a difference. Eventually they will spend that money as well and have to sell more property.
Mercy Hospital must not be permitted to impose upon the neighborhoods quality of life just to help them raise funds since they are unable to properly manage their own business and budget for improvement.
Incompetence must not be rewarded, especially at our expense.
I have been reminded that Mercy does not need justification to sell their property - they own it and do not need to ask anyone's permission to sell it. That Mercy is smart to use this $96 million dollars to improve their facilities so that they do not have to pay a massive amount of interest on construction loan. That many of the surrounding neighbors want this project built.
So, why are we not heading the advice of the Planning and Zoning Boards that are against this project?
I suspect the Grove Village Council and many others including me are also not in favor of this project.
Miami has a glut of new condos (more then Manhattan) and it will take many years to absorbed them all.
This glut is going to affect all of our property values, traffic, sewage and quality of life.
I don’t think we need to build any more units for a long time, which will just continue to contribute to the glut.
I heard that the Mercy project developers are compensating some of the neighborhood groups with funds for the inconvenience that they will be going through.
That sounds a little like a pay-off.
Our community does not need any more condos. We don’t want to reward Mercy Hospital for its poor management and greed. What we want are three of the five Miami City Commissioners to step up to the plate and vote down this Mercy project. We need our commissioners to fight for the rights of its citizens and quality of life.
Harry Emilio Gottlieb
Harry Gottlieb always writes well. Much of his work is far superior to anything produced by the Herald.
Hopefully 4 or 5 commissioners will vote to deny Relateds request to change Mercy's zoning. Related wants to build a small city on the Mercy site.
Thank you anonymous Harry Emilio Gottlieb for your insightful post. This new trend I have been hearing about in Dade and Broward -- of developers paying off neighborhood groups -- disturbs me. Money seems to buy everything in this town. I hope they send some my way to try to stop me from writing about them...
You are right Kirk, Harry writes very well.
Several cities have strong rules regulating lobbyists. It is a shame there are no laws preventing developers from paying off neighbors and dissenters. That is another example of checkbook zoning. Another disturbing trend is developers sending their employees and vendors to the podium to extol the shady projects. These employess usually live far from the areas they are abusing.
It is a shame neighbors will sell out their neighbors for a few dollars from developers. A new condo canyon should not be permitted on the Mercy site.
We have condo canyons north of the Grove on Brickell Avenue and south of the Grove at Dadeland.
We also have condo canyons downtown and in the Omni/PAC/Grand/Margaret Pace Park area. We will soon have condo canyons in Park West on Biscayne Blvd. We do not need another condo canyon on the Mercy site. Single family neighborhoods should be protected. We hope at least 4 or 5 Commissioners realize that.
Speaking of trust, the following is the City Code that Mr. Arriola violated when he visited City Commissioners in December on behalf of....? How much $$ was funneled to the 'Sarnoff Campaign'?
Sec. 2-612. Transacting business with city; appearances before city boards, etc.
(a) No person included in section 2-611 shall enter into any contract or transact any business with the city or any person or agency acting for the city, or shall appear in representation of any third party before any board, commission or agency of which such person is a member. No employee shall appear in any capacity on behalf of any third party before any board, commission or agency of the city. Any such contract or agreement entered into or appearance made in violation of this section shall render the transaction voidable. However this section shall not apply to an employee participating in federal economic development programs, the community development block grant assisted single family rehabilitation loan program, or the various affordable housing programs assisted through the home investment partnership program and state housing initiatives partnership program administered by the department of community development provided that the employee meets all criteria of the program and provided that the city manager approves the participation of the employee and that the employee is identified as being an employee of the city in applicable documents.
(b) The word "person" appearing in subsection (a) of this section shall include officers, officials and employees as set forth in section 2-611 hereof and the following family members of such "person": spouse, son, daughter, parent, brother or sister.
(c) The prohibition upon activity which is set forth in subsections (a) and (b) of this section shall remain in effect for a period of two years after the officer, official, or employee has left city service or terminated city employment.
(Code 1967, § 2-102; Ord. No. 9015, § 1, 11-8-79; Ord. No. 10823, § 2, 1-10-91; Code 1980, § 2-302; Ord. No. 11755, § 2, 2-9-99; Ord. No. 11816, § 2, 7-13-99; Ord. No. 11908, § 2, 4-13-00; Ord. No. 12401, § 1, 9-11-03)
State law references: Doing business with one's agency, F.S. § 112.313(13), (14).
From researching the public records it appears that neither Joe Arriola nor any member of his family contributed to any City election in 2006.
Perhaps Joe Arriola was visiting Manny Diaz to discuss the fire fee fiasco? Maybe they were discussing the $729,000 in campaign contributions to Linda Haskins losing campaign? Maybe they were discussing Linda Haskin's motion and vote to grant Pedro Martin and his Terra Group a 67 story high rise, contrary to the 12 story height limit recommended on miami21.org? Maybe they were discussing the 25-30 $500 checks she received days later?
Thank god Linda Haskins did not get elected. By now she would have ordered the paving of Bicentennial Park and Morningside Park. She would have ordered RFP's for developers to build more high rises on those parks.
Watch Sarnoff do his best to increase quality of life.
Subj: RE: Residents see red after plans show little green
Date: Sunday, February 4, 2007 1:39:23 PM
From: frollason@comcast.net
To: franzenz@earthlink.net, MiamiCityWatch@aol.com, cmiro@miamigov.com
cc:
To me, the saddest part is that our District 2 Commissioner did not take a position in the FDOT meeting when he had the opportunity. I think all of us recognize that Marc cannot satisfy everyone, but he had to take a public stand – for or against the palm vs. oak issue. To tell us that our best bet is to let FDOT decide what is the appropriate tree in a particular spot is utter nonsense; after all, he had his “tree rep” attend the last FDOT landscaping meeting (I asked him and he said he was there because Marc listens to him when it comes to tree issues) and he supported the royal palms on the record to FDOT. I would think that he would have reported that back to Marc and Marc would have supported the royals to FDOT in the public forum last Wednesday night. What he told us was that he met privately with FDOT – any upper eastside rep attend? – and that FDOT heard loud and clear his position. Well, what is that position and just what did they hear loud and clear? Think about it, an oak tree will fit but a royal palm will not? This just does not make sense. On top of this, we kept hearing from FDOT that “the City” will not enter into a maintenance agreement and there was not a peep from Marc over this issue except to say that he would get back with the Administration and see what he could work out. Does he not realize that the City Administration does not make the policies, the Commission does. So why does he have to say that he has to go back to mommy and see if he can get permission? He told us at the FDOT meeting that, “you (the residents and businesses) better get together and then tell FDOT what you want”. What I think he should be doing is meeting with the upper eastside separately from FDOT and finding out what the consensus is among the residents and businesses and then he should be meeting with FDOT and telling their them what he wants as our elected representative. Then, he needs to prepare a Resolution for his Commission District 2 pages instructing the City Manager to enter into a maintenance agreement with FDOT for the trees, irrigation, lighting, shrubs, and any sidewalk treatments ultimately selected by the City in concert with the Upper Eastside collectively; don’t want to hear about funding either – where there is a will there is always a way to find a way to fund it – perhaps from the Transportation Tax. Then, he needs to build a consensus among the other commissioners to have this supported in his district. If he is unable to garner their support as Regalado did for Coral Way or Gonzalez did for NW 14th Street then he is useless to us. Any commissioner who cannot gather a consensus to get his issues adopted, but can only pontificate upon his position is about as useful as a neighborhood activist who appears before the Commission – politely listened to, but largely ignored.
I have been largely keeping my mouth shut on issues District-wide because I do not want my views to be construed as sour grapes; I did not speak on the Mercy project even though it would have been useless – the vote went as I predicted as many of you already know and I have kept my nose out of the Home Depot issue when I think most of us already know how that one is headed, too. Marc was elected and if all will recall, I put my full support behind him for the runoff – not just words but in deeds. Many know that I contacted them personally and asked them to support Marc as the superior candidate – especially for the upper eastside. This issue, however, is an upper eastside issue. It does not impact the Grove or the Roads or Brickell or downtown. This issue impacts the upper eastside and I expect Marc to live up to his own observations that our area has been neglected far more than the rest of District 2 – his words, ask him yourself. Now, we have the MIMO Historic District, which I supported when it was proposed and still support, and the issue of how the Boulevard looks in the end will have a definite impact on the survival and blossoming of businesses within the District. It is not an issue that I or other residents can live with either the palms or the oaks or a combination of the two. It is an issue that the businesses have requested the palms and they have requested some sort of unique sidewalk treatment along with appropriate lighting to identify the MIMO district. This demands that our commissioner take a public position and either help the MIMO business corridor or just ignore it – everyone is used to the latter from previous commissioners and certainly the City Administration! Marc is there because we supported him and now, he should deliver or at least make a genuine effort that may in the end make some people upset, but that just comes with the territory, Frank.
It is now January 2014 and Marc Sarnoff has been a huge disappointment. Once elected he switched sides. He now does whatever his deep pocketed out-of-town donors tell him to do. He became just another ugly politician. So sad.
It is now May 2014 and a group of foreign speculators wants Tomas Regalado and Marc Sarnoff to give them a huge chunk of waterfront Bicentennial Park. Sarnoff appears to be helping with this theft.
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