We begin with the Miami Herald, our city’s only daily newspaper, which today declined on its editorial page to endorse removing a county commissioner who is the lightning rod for citizen discontent: Natacha Seijas.
Seijas is the de facto chair of the Miami-Dade County Commission from District 13, the all-important district including voters in Hialeah.
All-important because Miami-Dade County is Florida’s largest county and Hialeah is the stronghold, the political Bethlehem for wealthy Cuban American developers who live in wealthy gated communities in Coral Gables, South Miami and Miami Beach.
An insurgent campaign by citizen activists succeeded in collecting enough signatures from district voters to qualify for a recall campaign of Seijas, overcoming malignant intimidation of signature gatherers typical of Castro's Havana, not the United States.
It apparently does not matter to the Herald that in her political career Seijas has been one of the paper's most virulent haters, leveling broadsides against the paper at every public opportunity.
What matters to the Herald more are the advertisers whose commercial success Seijas represents: that is to say, the builders and developers whose advertisements are a foundational source of revenue for the paper.
In this sense, all you need to know is in the full page ad and its timing by US Century Bank, which generated another $50,000 or so in revenue today for the Miami Herald, in section A1.
We’re all in this together, the ad seems to say. And we agree, in our own way.
We know what they mean.
The founders of Century Bank are lobbyists turned developers, like Sergio Pino and his colleagues at the Latin Builders Association, and a whole array of interests linked to production home building and mortgage generation. No one begrudges them their success. It is just the costs we argue over and who should bear them.
We're not talking chump change: the unreported infrastructure backlog of county departments totals more than $7 billion, not counting schools or the airport or criminal justice. Runaway growth has made a few people exceedingly wealthy, but just because they are wealthy doesn't mean they are right.
The way we are all in this together is the mind-numbing catalogue of consequences afflicting Miami Dade County.
Why won’t the Miami Herald write what Seijas’ political career has really stood for?
Turning Miami International Airport into a piñata for lobbyists who support her campaigns and issues, the traffic nightmare throughout the county as a consequence of bad planning for infrastructure investments, the same for our water and wastewater and most recently the contamination of our drinking water aquifer by the industry whose secrecy she strongly supports—rock mining for cement and roadway construction—then there is the Homestead Air Force Base fiasco whose true costs have never been disclosed, ignoring the needs of affordable housing in favor of production home builders, and the massive backlog of infrastructure deficits the Miami Herald has failed to report.
Are these enough reasons to recall Seijas? Yes.
But more than our disagreement about the costs of unbridled growth, we object to the failure of the city's only daily newspaper to link up these issues for readers through regular coverage of local news and supported with in-depth investigative journalism, from which editorials should flow.
It is NOT just the Urban Development Boundary. In writing that the root cause of the Seijas recall is failing to mend fences with her critics in a small part of her district, Miami Lakes, the Herald editorial board focuses its magnifying glass on a tiny irritation while foregoing the examination of system failure.
“Her failure to connect with these voters and that community in general is at the core of the dispute that has led to the recall vote.” That is just plain wrong.
We wonder, actually, where Herald executives and editorial board members get THEIR news about local government. It is certainly not from news reports published in the Herald, because they are scant.
At County Hall, Herald reporters stay for a while and rotate out or leave the Herald. Journalists who have penetrated the morass of county government and the county commission know what the score is, but in news inches their beat is a marginal contribution.
The sooner the Miami Herald gets back to providing a comprehensive view of what ails Miami-Dade County, the sooner it will start to regain readership it has lost over the years.
McClatchy, are you listening?
7 comments:
I looked in today's Miami Herald (which was delivered late) for an article about the Seijas' recall. I was disappointed to find none. Buried in the Opinion page is the weakest editorial that I have so far read in the Herald.
According to their editorial, an elected official should only be recalled when the person committed "misfeasance, malfeasance or absenteeism" -what about "not doing their job?", or, worst, "representing special interests instead of the welfare of their constituents?".
The Miami Herald disappoints me more each day. A newspaper that gives priority to Ms. Spears' lack of underwear than important issues that affect the community, belongs in the homes of the Hollywood crowd not in mine. I'll cancel my subscription immediately!!!!
Ulimately, as been proven once again, today the Herald prefers to side with the corrupt than with grass-roots citizens. I guess in order to please the Herald we have to be big shot developers with money coming out of our butts in order to contribute to lame people like "Natacha Seijas" I feel sorry for the Herald because my next rally will be to get as many people to CANCEL THEIR shameful newspaper. !!!
This is sickening for the Herald not to strongly urge Seijas' recall. I have recollections of numerous stories in the Herald over the years about dubious shady deals approved by the Commission and it seems to me that Seijas voted for every one of them. She was behind the no-bid HABDI deal at Homestead AFB, the contaminated soil deal at Opa-locka, and countless other smelly deals that wouldn't pass muster at a normal American county commission meeting. Isn't that enough justification to support her recall? I used to watch the commission meetings frequently before I went to satellite TV and anyone who isn't a crook and who has watched a number of those meetings would vote for her recall. Based on my hundreds of viewing hours, I have a perception that she is anti-Anglo, anti-Black, anti-male, anti-environment and anti-taxpayer. Shame on the Miami Herald for the lack of guts to call it like it is.
What Britney Spears is having an underwear problem? How did I miss that. Thanks anonymous for telling me.
Say Hoss - she is anti woman too! I just got your name, I was thinking Hoss from Westerns...Not SEI-JAS
I'm still in a state of depression over her being able to buy her seat through massive out of district contributions for more time on the commission. I like the idea espoused by others to start another recall and another and another. I love the proposal for term limits of 8 years too, though it's 4 years too many for some of the commissioners.
Hopefully she will go down in history as the piece of excrement that she is. I am amazed that she has never been charged with anything by the state attorney's office.
If we had term limits then Sorenson might be gone and the best we could hope for is Heyman-like commissioners, moreover the bad ones would most likely only get worst. Without name recognition the only way to get elected is to collect money form special interestes postitutes, just look at the FL Leg....
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