Niesen Kasdin and Dan Ricker, polar opposites by gimleteye

Someone please open the windows.

Niesen Kasdin did not "preside over Miami Beach during its remarkable revitalization", as he writes in today's Miami Herald.

Kasdin is a lobbyist for developers. As a former mayor of Miami Beach, he was in the right place at the right time when entrepreneurs and activists with vision grasped the historical and cultural attractiveness of the Art Deco District.

Which leads me to the Ricker Report, by Dan Ricker. Give Dan credit: in his own way, the Watchdog Report, he’s trying to open the windows in Miami and Miami-Dade.

Dan writes: “In a community that spent $50 million over five-years fighting public corruption, and funded five community periodicals $20,000 each that did not exist, the Watchdog Report has survived on a gross income of $48,000, which is less than an entry position in the county’s transit department."

What Kasdin actually presided over was the failure to adequately protect South Beach from zoning changes and permitting that have taken years to materialize but now evidence in the way South Beach ressembles another taudry sea-side destination.

Dan Ricker doesn't focus much on the litany of problems that developers have created in Miami-Dade County. He does, though, offer occasional tidbits like one from this week's edition:

“… one representative of the building industry told the Watchdog Report that “what the state legislature did” by cutting property taxes is disproportionately impacting developers as municipalities try to offset the reduced revenue coming in after the property tax cuts and it was unfair. They noted the state leaders wanted to see waste and fat cut from the municipal budgets but the opposite in many ways is happening as cities study ways to increase fees to cover the funding shortfall rather than trim positions and services.”

Wasn't it Kasdin's clients from the building industry who primarily pushed the Republican legislature to “cut property taxes” in order to jump-start dead housing markets?

Now they are crying foul, because they got what they wanted? (All along, eyeonmiami has said that the Florida legislature and special session would deliver nada in terms of relief for builders now facing the worst collapse in housing since the 1920’s—mostly because of greed and avarice.)

Kasdin is way off-base in his assessment of downtown's budding roses. He's well paid to offer such well rounded views.

The Miami Herald owes its readers a counterpoint, in the interest of balance and fairness.

Dan, on the other hand, deserves financial support. If the Miami Herald believes enough in Dan to print his words occasionally, it should just hire him and provide a decent living wage.

Or maybe, lobbyists should be required to disclose all fees paid by clients and a tax levied on their gross income to be paid into a charitable foundation for award by an independent board comprised of citizens with no axe to grind, to be paid to community activists and independent (ie. no profit) news organizations like the Ricker Report.

After all, what activists in Miami-Dade County mostly do is gin up fees for lobbyists.

It’s a pretty damn lonely job Dan is doing. He writes, “There appears to be an urban myth that I have a trust fund, and it came up again at Thursday’s commission meeting when a long time friend and senior city executive told a reporter when she asked how I lived. He with a big grin on his face said I “had a trust fund.” In his case we will not be speaking in the future but as I have written before, as has been covered in multiple profiles of me in newspapers. I live off the community and money from residents that think having someone out in the community is important and it is an insult to me after a decade, for this to keep coming–up and is a major misconception the community has."

"When I first started watching government I planned to do this for only a short time, maybe six-months but as public institutions continued to unravel, scandals were coming from all directions, it seemed important to have someone in the field for the press does not cover all the thousands of public meetings held every year and it seemed someone needed to do it."

"Besides the decade of my life, I have also used all the personal money I had saved, about $425,000 over the years and that is no small contribution in my attempt to keep the public informed and it is for this reason. I bristle when some well paid government employee, with great health and retirement benefits makes a snarky comment because there is a big difference between feeling someone’s pain versus actually living it, and I hope some of my readers keep that in mind.”

In the last edition, Dan notes “As part of an ongoing public awareness initiative, Robert Meyers, Executive Director of the Ethics Commission, will appear on Topical Currents, WLRN 91.3FM, on July 16th from 1 PM-2 PM. He will discuss the issue of ethics in general, the work of the EIA Task Force and recent legislation that has empowered the Commission to review complaints from County employees who have blown the whistle on corruption and believe they have become targets of retaliation as a result. Mr. Meyers will be joined on the program by Elizabeth Hernandez, Coral Gables City Attorney and Chair of the EIA Task Force, and Watchdog Report publisher Daniel A. Ricker.”

Put it on your calendar and by all means, call-in: let Mr. Myers know what you feel about the effectiveness of the Miami-Dade County Ethics Commission and its multi-million dollar budget.