Lennar housing crash Miami county commission executive mayor by gimleteye

We wanted to write about dismal earnings reports from big production home builders in Miami and how all these years the county commission chased the housing boom leaving the hinterlands filled with empty tract housing, Miami’s skyline dotted with cranes and taxpayers in a deep dark tunnel, but then we stopped.

“Anti-establishment.” We hadn’t heard that word in a while, and when it was used to describe our blog we had to laugh. So we’ll leave the housing crash for another day.

There is an establishment in Miami. Its members also want good job opportunities, healthy business prospects in a place that other people respect and want to be associated with, adequate transportation, good parks and recreation, and a good quality of life. So in this respect, we are establishment too.

What we are against is the Miami status quo.

For Miamians, that status quo is a declining quality of life institutionalized by an unreformable majority of the county commissioners.

It is all about time. You don’t have the time to take your kids to the park during the week, after work, because you’re stuck in traffic.

And if you do live near a park, more likely than not you are also living in a Balkanized community because only the immediate neighborhood can get there. West Kendall comes to mind. Where are the playing fields in Miami?

In Miami Dade you can’t go to a public beach—most waterfront access was sold off long ago. And where you can get to public beaches with no parking fees, like the ones off Rickenbacker Causeway, all you get for your taxes are filthy garbage dumps.

We’ve seen “third world” Latin and South American countries with better public beach facilities than in Miami. How does this make us, anti-establishment for saying so?

And what about drinking water? The county commission, lead by the vitriolic and nasty Natacha Seijas, has allowed benzene—a cancer causing chemical—to infiltrate our aquifer where the wells are for 2 million residents.

When the rock mining industry—responsible for putting the benzene there—asked the county commission to halt all public hearings related to its permits, the county commission rolled over, condemning pesky citizens who waste the time of business.

So does the establishment or the anti-establishment want benzene in their drinking water wellfields?

Let us tell you about the anti-establishment. Whoever they are, they are stuck in traffic just like you and me.

This brings us to a pet peeve. The forced attempts at traffic report humor, a category of mindlessness, on Miami’s public radio during rush hour.

There is nothing good to say about the traffic in Miami. Here is the truth: there is NO ELASTICITY in Miami traffic: someone’s fender falls off an hour ago, you are screwed.

Here’s the script we’d like to hear on radio during rush hour: “Today northbound Rt. 95 is slower than traffic in downtown Bangkok, where at least a street vendor will sell you a soda. If you are stuck on the Palmetto, we recommend pulling off to get a haircut because by the time you get home, your hair will have grown so long no one will recognize you. ”

How angry does it make you that county commissioners approve one zoning change after another for “affordable housing” in the hinterlands, where there are no jobs and from which commuting is a back-breaking burden?

It doesn't matter how expensive your car is: no one can afford spending three hours a day commuting to and from work.

You are still stuck in traffic. Someone is responsible for Miami's mess, noted recently by Time Magazine.

We believe it is the single member district system of government by thirteen county commissioners, who pull the strings of one county manager.

The way to redress that injury is the county-wide election for an executive mayor, 19 days from now.

The majority of county commissioners had their chance to govern. The report card was in, a long time ago. They failed.

In today’s Miami Herald, Michael Putney predicts the executive mayor referendum will pass, and that a new election for mayor will cut out Carlos Alvarez and return re-treaded politicians to the county-wide race. In other words, the status quo will live on.

He may be right, but it may also be the case that the lobbyist-driven government we have today is a function of serving thirteen masters.

There is a ton of excess cost to taxpayers that could be squeezed out like a sponge by responsible leadership in the executive mayor suite.

And we don’t sell Mayor Carlos Alvarez short: working with this unreformable county commission would have tested the patience of Job. He is deservedly popular.

Any change is threatening to the status quo, whether to lobbyists or the unions. We say, bring it on.