I don’t know a person that I would rather NOT have on the Charter Review Committee than Miguel DeGrandy. If there is to be a poison pill, who will get it in our charter? It will be framed well and sound nice. Watch this Committee like a hawk. There are probably some members I am not familiar with that might not have the citizens’ best interest at heart.
Miami Beach Mayor, David Dermer, a member, has proposed that citizen vote on Urban Development Boundary movement rather than the County Commission. I like that idea. However, us voting is not always going to be perfect. You realize the opposition will mount fear campaigns to influence voters to move the line. A fear campaign not unlike what they did with the Watershed Plan. With that one, they scared Palmetto Bay and Pinecrest and other cities. If they did it with that dinky plan they can do it to move the boundary. It will just cost more money to sway voters. After all, the voters approved that dumb theme park at the zoo, and they will approve gambling too.
An aside to tony cities: Either you stand up and say no growth but to say no growth ONLY IN MY CITY is just plain wrong. We either all share the burden of growth or we stop it cold. You are being short sighted and selfish. More density over a 20 year period along your transit corridor is reasonable if you don’t have the guts to say stop. Unfortunately, no one actually wants to grow but no one has the balls to say it. SAY IT!
Back to the subject of the Charter, I have requested the minutes so far to see what is up. But you all must take control and go to the boring meetings. They are important. Back to basics: for all of you who don't know, Miami Dade County has a Home Rule Charter (the only county in the State of Florida to have one) that can only be changed by a vote of all of us. Some Commissioners will try to tinker with this Charter Review process going on to suit themselves and their friends. What they put up for a vote is critical because it will sound nice on the ballot but it might not be good. We need at least a little control over what gets placed on the ballot.
Here are the dates for the public hearings go to as many as possible (WHY OH WHY IS THIS IN THE SUMMER?):
WHEN & WHERE: Tuesday, August 14, 2007, 6 p.m.
Stephen P. Clark Government Center
111 NW 1st Street
Miami, FL 33128
Commission Chambers, 2nd Floor
Wednesday, August 22, 2007, 6 p.m.
South Dade Government Center
10710 SW 211th Street
Cutler Bay, FL , 33189
Conference Room 203
Tuesday, August 28, 2007, 6 p.m.
Joseph Caleb Center Auditorium
5400 NW 22 Avenue
Miami, FL 33142
Thursday, August 30, 2007, 6 p.m.
Miami Beach Commission Chambers 3rd Floor
1700 Convention Center Drive
Miami Beach, FL 33139
7 comments:
You know that most 99.8% of the county residents don't know about these meetings and I hazard to guess that 90% don't even know what the charter is. And that is why government life is the way it is.
I RECKON YOU ARE 99% RIGHT ANON!
So keep us informed on what is up with this. By the way, what is up with this?
Look who is helping the developers undermine Hometown Democracy Amend--Publix! From the St. Pete Times
Publix uses law to boot gadfly
The anti-petition law had been on the books a week before the woman's arrest.
By JENNIFER LIBERTO, Times Staff Writer
Published August 8, 2007
TALLAHASSEE - Florida's largest grocery chain lobbied hard for a new law that gives businesses the right to boot from their property unwanted signature gatherers hawking ballot proposals.
Didn't take long to use it.
The state had no clear policy on the issue, and Florida's courts had delivered mixed messages about whether shopping malls and parking lots should be considered public places open for political purposes.
While Publix wanted the right to prohibit all ballot groups from gathering signatures on their property, they particularly dislike a proposal being pushed by a group called Hometown Democracy that would require all land-use changes to be put to a local vote. Hometown Democracy wants the land-use change added to the state Constitution and is aiming for Election Day in November 2008 to get statewide voter approval.
The new anti-petition law had only been on the books a week on July 8, when a 68-year-old South Florida gadfly was handcuffed and arrested for breaking it. She spent two days in jail.
Joyce Tarnow was the new law's prime target: she was gathering signatures for Hometown Democracy at a Pompano Beach Publix parking lot when she was arrested and charged with trespassing.
Tarnow would like to be a test case. She'd like to be the one whose arrest sparks the legal challenge that knocks out the new state law against gathering petitions on private property.
But it's not working out that way.
"I wasn't being impolite, I wasn't harassing anybody, and I didn't block any entrances," she said. "I just told them I believe the Constitution says I have a right to be here."
* * *
Tarnow is a magnet for controversy. While the Publix trespassing incident was her first arrest, she knows the state's trespassing laws through and through. She is now retired, but in an earlier life she ran an often-attacked abortion clinic in South Florida that regularly made headlines.
Widowed with grown children and grandchildren, Tarnow is a veteran of political protests, a frequent contributor to newspaper editorial pages and a bit of a free spirit. She also runs her own anti-sprawl organization called Floridians for a Sustainable Population.
"It's not like I woke up on a Sunday morning and thought I should go out and try to get arrested," she said.
The arrest report details how she was gathering signatures at the Publix on 531 East McNab Road in Pompano Beach and how Publix Manager Andy Greenberg told her she was violating a new law. He asked her to leave. She refused.
Her stay in jail was lengthy for a second-degree misdemeanor but she acknowledges that was due more to circumstances than anything against her. She was arrested without her wallet and couldn't reach anyone to help her until late on Sunday. A judge ordered her release on Monday morning, but she didn't walk out until after 1 a.m. on Tuesday.
Publix spokeswoman Maria Brous said that while corporate headquarters was not aware of the arrest until the Times asked about it, they are not surprised.
"As a company, we have long fought for the rights of our customers to shop without political solicitation or signing petitions," Brous said. "We believe we have that right, since it is private property."
Even before getting the new law passed, Publix appeared to be on solid legal ground to stop petition-gathering. Publix won a case similar to Tarnow's in Leon County Circuit Court, when a judge ruled that citizen rights to speech and petition don't trump Publix's private property rights.
The new law solidifies that view, but the Florida ACLU's legal director, Randall Marshall, thinks the new law, and the old theories behind it, can still be challenged. He just doesn't want to use the Tarnow case.
* * *
Several years ago in Bay County, a gadfly named Kevin Wood, was gathering signatures to run for public office at the Panama City Mall when he was arrested for trespassing.
A Bay County Circuit Judge ruled that a shopping mall is a "quasi-public" place, where petition signatures can be collected. Marshall wants to use that judge's opinion to go after the new law.
"There is a legal theory that would support the right to be petition-gathering in an enclosed mall, and perhaps strip mall," Marshall said. "But only after those cases got extended would it be advisable to take on a stand-alone store."
In other words, Tarnow's trespass at Publix is harder to fight.
And she's got another problem with her bid to be come a constitutional martyr. After her arrest, Tarnow pleaded no contest, which means she officially declared that she wasn't challenging the charge against her. Lawyers have since advised her that's not the way you build a case of wrongful arrest.
But Tarnow is undaunted. She says places that invite the public to gather should also be open to the "exchange of ideas." So she plans to continue collecting signatures in parking lots and shopping plazas, even if it means getting arrested again.
"We have to persist in order to keep our constitutional rights," she said. "So if it means challenging the law at another venue at another time, I'm going to do it."
[Last modified August 8, 2007, 00:20:35]
BLOGGERS NEED TO ATTEND THESE MEETINGS.
Victor Diaz is the appointed Chairman. Victor is a smart guy. Let us see if he can be independent or if he is taking orders.
M-D County needs term limits.
M-D County needs some county-wide seats.
M-D County needs commissioners without so many conflicts-of-interest.
We must get the dead wood out now.
Perhaps newly elected commissioners, who win county-wide, can get salaries of $50,000 or so?
The County website has a page dedicated to the Charter Review Task Force which has great information on the members. It also has links to the meeting minutes which are quite comprehensive. Chairman is doing a great job considering all the personalities and some of the agendas. The Chairman is clearly not under any influnce or direction as to how to direct the discussion. By ordinance, the chairman of the task force is the county chair's appointee.
Some interesting appointments.
http://www.miamidade.gov/charterreview/
Whatever the Task Force recommendations are, they have to be approved by the County Commission in order to be put on a ballot. They will never approve any meaningful reform, so this Task Force is 5 months of foreplay with a cold shower finish. Still, makes for good drama.
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