Decoding Miami and its demons... by gimleteye

With Natacha Seijas, the de facto chair of the county commission, it is comical--if it weren't so tragic--the transparency of her pandering to the building and development lobby.

Seijas is at war with Planning and Zoning in Miami-Dade. On the dais, she has learned to conceal her vitriol beneath a very thin veneer of polish. Her political life cause is facilitating for her developer patrons the build-out of every last square foot of Miami-Dade county that isn't a park.

As I predicted months ago, shortfalls in the county budget because of the housing crash would be used to further cement the economic elite--whether by taking over the county housing agency, or, liberating the Urban Development Boundary.

Right now, the Department of Planning and Zoning takes very seriously the matter of professional planning according to standards and goals established long ago, that are meant to be responsible to taxpayers and the environment.

But Seijas' supporters who minted millions during the building boom are holding mortgages for hundreds of acres of property outside the Urban Development Boundary, purchased at speculative prices that can only be unlocked if the zoning is changed (and when the housing crash reverses).

Eyeonmiami has always maintained that the political elite would use collapsing housing markets and serial scandals to further entrench campaign contributors (ie. HUD takeover of the county housing agency that would accrue to the benefit of powerful Latin American builders).

This is clearly what is involved in Seijas' recommendation to merge the two deparments: put the insider lobbyists and developers in charge of planning and zoning. Of course, it wouldn't happen all at once but the timing is acquiring greater urgency month by month.

Give them the keys to unlock the value of Krome Gold, Inc. and other properties that are taking away the net worth of millionaires at a rapid and alarming clip.

It is a very simple game. One way to keep a scorecard is to keep your eyes open for anything that the county commission does hinting of the glorious insurrection against Cuba and Castro, a person who knows very well how much value he has created for the Miami elite.

You don't have to be a Navajo to decode what is going on in Miami-Dade county: you just have to follow the money.

When the economic elite needs to marshall the political forces of Miami to move its agenda forward, watch for signs like "Museum for Bay of Pigs backed: County commissioners indicated support for using a prime piece of bayfront land for a parking garage and Bay of Pigs museum. They authorized a study, with a decision expected this winter."

This has less to do with a museum--which will quickly become outdated once Castro passes--than building momentum for lobbyists and their Cuban American developer patrons--who are hemmoraging cash--to move in lockstep towards decisions that will free up their equity.

That's why the end of Matthew Pinzur's article, that focuses on Seijas' comments against a plan by Dennis Moss to help the Caribbean basin economies (ie. not Cuba) read almost like a Freudian slip: "Seijas, saying she endorses any effort to help any of the Caribbean islands, said she couldn't support the resolution sponsored by Dennis Moss and Sosa because the term ''Marshall Plan'' has become a metaphor for large-scale government programs used by liberals to fix social ills. ''I think it'll bring all kinds of feelings of negativism,'' to the different levels of the federal government, she said. ``Those would be fighting words.''

Read closely her choice of words--that might have been scripted by Miguel de Grandy: if the problem is "large scale government programs used by liberals to fix social ills" then the "solution" would be liberating private industry to deliver the benefits of the "free market".

If it sounds familiar, it is because that is exactly the bullshit that turned Florida into the epicenter of the nation's crashing housing markets and triggered a world-wide credit crisis.

By all means, honor the Bay of Pigs veterans-- but even those grizzled men and their wives approaching or ensconced in old age should know their cause is manipulated by a Cuban American elite who live in gated estates in Coral Gables and Pinecrest and Doral, not Little Havana or Hialeah, and that their quest to be memorialized by a museum that would be hidden behind a basketball stadium is nothing more than an organizing tactic to liberate millions of dollars now held captive, in their view, by Planning and Zoning.

What Seijas does, and prides herself on doing, is "marshalling" the Cuban American economic elite: the Sergio Pinos, the Latin Builders, and the lobbyists who understand that conformity of public opinion and political hegemony paves the way to wealth and power.

When speculators control the levers of power, delusions are held as the highest value on behalf of the suffering people.