Bra does good. Cheap imitation wonderbra stops bullet (almost).
School Board Member Marta wins in court - public record request bid from Crew.
The Broward Port is better than the Miami Port.
Reader complains the Herald prints fluff.
Another reader, "Banker Bill" Losner trashes the Watershed Study - No surprise there, except the Herald doesn't identify his ties to the Farm Bureau, etc.
See, we can report like the 5 minute Herald - except better - IN ONE MINUTE!
20 comments:
it is understandable that the browad port is better. look who is running the Miami Dade Port:
The county commission. By the way, the Broward airport is better too. We can't run anything right in miami.
Aren't we still paying Japan $2,000,000 a year to exercise a train we paid for but have no tracks for at the airport?
Bill Losner does not speak for, nor does he represent the Farm Bureau. The only person he speaks for is himself.
Bill Losner holds the farmers by the short and curlies-He gives them loans to farm.
And btw, if you pay close attention, the Farm Bureau doesn't represent farmers either.
Every piece of farmland that the Bureau convinces farmers to sellout to developers tightens the noose around the necks of the farmers that want to continue to farm.
The Herald should tell people more about how the banking works for farmland, putting farmers in the hole because they can borrow money based on the "market rate" for their property. Mo' money, mo' money. It's been the best game for nearly a decade but now the housing crash. Hi value for tract housing, low valu for food crop. Which is why Losner on the "watershed study" is a joke. Where's the story in the Miami Herald how the money works!?
Get a grip! Farm Bureau doesn't convince farmers to sell their land! That is a ludicrous statement. Nobody works harder for the farmers, the REAL farmers, than the Farm Bureau!!!
Yes, Losner is beyond annoying if you don't like his views. Still, its no reason to dis the Farm Bureau. Losner is not Farm Bureau's appointee to the Watershed Committee. He is entitled to his viewpoint just like every one else.
Farm Bureaus thru out this lovely state of ours have supported Agriculture land being sold for housing.
The orange growers laughed all the way to the bank, getting high prices for their land and also getting money from the state for the Citrus canker debacle at the same time.
In the end , we will all pay the price for such foolishness when we are forced to over pay for foreign grown food as our only option.
Tisk, Tisk
For the life of me, why can't the farmer "don't-wanna-bes" allow the farmer "do-wanna-bes" to maintain their ability to farm?
Don't go to the property rights rant. You buy the property with the zoning and value that comes with it at the time of purchase. The govenment doesn't promise to upzone your land. My zoning for one house on an acre doesn't have a special exception in the deed that says "geeee, sit here and fuss, and the commission will allow you to build 30 condos so you can retire better".
The farm bureau is an insurance company. Their foundation is turning into an organization that spends more time nuturing the commissioners (and other political types), than they do the growers. They insure "hobby farmers", yet they mock them (I guess they forgot they are customers, too).
Oh well, Karma happens.
bob I.
How did i dis the farm bureau? by connecting them and Losner? Does the tie of Losner diminish the farm bureau? Hmmm.
okay people here is the board of directors of the farm bureau and Bill Losner is a board member of the farrm bureau. So Bob I, he does have ties to the farm bureau. When someone is strongly connected to a group -- it is sometime necessary to state: This is just my opinion. Banker Bill was representing another GROUP (I think Homestead?) on the Watershed Committee not himself. So a distinction should have been made. Is he talking for Bill, for the farm bureau, for the group he represented on the Watershed Committee?
I don't really care what he thinks by the way...but people should always know the full story so they can make an informed decision on a writer's motivation. Those of us who know Banker Bill...well we know him. Let's leave it there.
The farm bureau board members below:
Ivonne Alexander, Happy Days Nursery
Michael Borek, Michael Borek Farms
Teena Borek, Steven Borek Farms
Mercedes Salazar Cantillo, Two Sisters Nursery
Angela DelliVeneri, LaRocca Farms
Bob Epling, Community Bank of Florida
Sal Finocchiaro, F&T Farms
John Fredrick, Atlantic FEC
Steve Hoveland, H&H Grove Caretaking Services
Jim Husk, Circle D Farms
David Kaplan, The Plant Doctor
Bobby Lee, Superior Foliage
Bill Losner, 1st National Bank of South Florida
Phil Marraccini, Summerland Fish Farm
Bob McMillan, Kerry’s Bromeliad Nursery
Robert Moehling, Robert is Here
John Sanchez, Blaylock Oil
Steve Sapp, Florida Fresh International
Peter Schnebly, Schnebly Redlands Winery
Bobby Shekels, UAP Florida
Neal Spencer, Bayside Tree Farm
Sandy Stein, The Jungle Nursery
Vito Strano, Strano Farms
Erik Tietig, Pine Island Nursery
Mark Wilson, State Director
Larry Dunagan, President
Dunagan & Son
Kern Carpenter, President-Elect
Kern Carpenter Farms
John Alger, 1st Vice President Alger Farms
Sam Accursio, 2nd Vice President Sam S. Accursio Farms
Robbie Martens, Secretary East Glade Growers
Alice Pena, Treasurer PNS Groves
Robbie Bishop, Past President
27 Farms of Homestead
And, I am offended that I did this great graphic and made good fun of the Herald and all you can focus on is one tiny part of my post. Did you like the graphic?
Graphic......Luv it darling!
And the Farm Bureau in Miami, well they are just another very bad example of the problem that farmers have faced in agriculture for a long time. They all try to screw real farmers (inc. hobby farmers) bankers, giant product food companies, chemical companies, even the corporate dominated co-ops and now the genetically modified puyorers of "hope." Just listen to any Woody Guthrie song its the same story over and over again.
Okay, are any of you bloggers actually farmers or Farm Bureau members? I am. Quite honestly, I am pained that you folks have this warped perception of Farm Bureau. I will gladly take up for the Bureau any day. Especially after they helped me through the process of obtaining a water use permit and reapplying for my ag exemption.
You can't make the Farm Bureau sound to be reasonable in Miami Dade county. It opposes ANY measure to retain agriculture. It killed the Ag Retention Study. Its objections have wasted countless hours of citizens trying to find a way to protect ag land, INCLUDING transfer of development rights, land aquisition program. It wanted the Homestead Air Base to be a commercial airport so farmers could sell off their land to quick buyers. So why not just agree that Dade County Farm Bureau should be listed in the Chamber guide as a division of the South Florida Builders Association. Because it is.
Land use plans don't save industries, INCLUDING agriculture.
Maybe the mindset in this county will never change. At least, not in my lifetime.
One of you anonymous said (try to think up names for yourselves):
“I am pained that you folks have this warped perception of Farm Bureau.”
Okay, here is why I have a problem with the Bureau.
During the early days of the Watershed Meetings everyone participating agreed to certain rules including the Farm Bureau representative. One of the rules was that members wouldn't express opinions outside the meetings until the effort was done. (I am pretty sure that is an accurate recollection but I do vegetate at many meetings so I could be wrong but I usually catch the good stuff). Then a few months later your Katie Edwards has articles and letters all over the place denouncing the study BEFORE THE CONCLUSION. That was wrong plain and simple. I am sure the group does really good work but that was a breach of trust. Other groups didn’t do that. So I don’t think my perception is warped. The only one I have is this experience...and knowing Bill the Banker.
Genius,
Your understanding is incorrect. In fact, Mr. Assistant County Manager/Watershed Chair/All-Around Intimidator Roger Carlton encouraged members to speak their mind, just remember to do it on behalf of their group, not the Committee.
Other groups who are involved with the Everglades Coalition have been touting the Watershed Study's glory LONG BEFORE it ever came to its conclusions.
The STUDY is complete. AFTER the Study was complete, the Committee took up the PLAN part, which is what was OVERWHELMING REJECTED.
The reason why other groups are not coming out in the media and to their membership NOW saying how great everything is, is because they know they don't have a good argument that can be based on FACT.
Land use plans may not save agriculture, howver land use regulations can. Just look at the experience of Portland, most of W. Europe, or some cities in Canada. By enforcing tough land use regualtions, even under tremendous pressure, i.e. S.E. England (metro London) green space and farming can be preserved. Moreoever, why is it that landowners get all of the higher value when zoning regulations are changed? Why aren't the gains distributed more evenly throughout the society given that society pays for the major roads, and other improvements that have such a large impact on the valuse of land? Remember it is often not "luck" that ensures that a piece of land is located near a new airport of expressway stop.
I am a farmer and I got my water use permit long ago without any help from the Farm Bureau Insurance Company. The permitting process has been around for 10 + years and any farmer who did not know about it lives in la la land.
As to banker Bill Losner, he has been on the board of the insurance company for decades and has had a strong influence in shaping their policies; gosh they meet at his bank. He represents the Homestead/Florida City Chamber on the Watershed. The positions of the two groups are near identical, building is good, conservation is bad! Three years ago the insurance company and the Chamber joined forces to build a new high school at S. Dade High. You see, the overcrowed schools were hurting development.Losner rented a lemo to squire Burgess and other government types around the area. Katy Edwards went on a campaign to arm-twist Farm Bureau members to fax her prepared petitions to the School Board. There were 3 scenarios for placing the new school.Which one did the chamber and the insurance company promote? The one that put it on the school's agriculture land, of course!
AFTER the Study was complete, the Committee took up the PLAN part, which is what was OVERWHELMING REJECTED.
It was not overwhelmingly rejected. In fact, the Environmental groups did not vote to reject all strategies; municipalities (Homestead) did not vote to reject all (FL City was not there for the vote and no other municipalities were represented (other than Mayor Flynn who sat with Katie E); residential groups (Kendall Federation) did not vote to reject all (the only other residential group was a woman from a homeowners group in the Palmetto Bay area, she did vote against all); all agriculture groups did not vote no to all of them (AgriCouncil, RCA, FL Lime and Avocado), and all business interests did not vote no to all (TEVA and the Everglades Alligator Farm).
In order for an implementation strategy to be approved, it required a minimum of 80 percent favorable votes. The votes may have not reached the 80% threshold, but there were quite a few simple majorities throughout the strategies.
One need to dump all votes that were all "yes" or all "no", and get a view of the voting from folks that were not doing 'make-a-statement' votes.
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