County Commissioners creatively disburse their discretionary money when it comes time for reelection. The odd number district Commissioners are running. This is not illegal, just interesting to note what they do as election time nears. These two are on the Agenda today:
RESOLUTION APPROVING THE ALLOCATION OF FY 2007-2008 DISTRICT DISCRETIONARY RESERVE FUNDS OF:
DISTRICT 13 (Natacha Seijas)
St. Thomas University $10,000.00, North Twin Lakes Elementary School 2,500.00, American Senior High School $30,000.00, Hialeah-Miami Lakes Senior High School 3,000.00, Meadowlane Elementary School $5,000.00, North Hialeah Elementary School $1,000.00, Palm Springs Elementary School $5,000.00.
DISTRICT 11 (Joe Martinez)
$1,000.00 to the Black Affairs Advisory Board - Pillar Awards, $500.00 to Victim Response Inc. - The Lodge, $13,000.00 to Little Havana's Activities and Nutrition Center - Meals on Wheels in District 11, $10,000.00 to the South Florida SPCA Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Inc., $15,000.00 to West Dade Community Services, $1,000.00 to Adams & Adams P.A. Trust Account - Samantha & Brandon Navarro (Officer Maggie Navarro), and $1,300.00 to West Kendall Baptist Church.
9 comments:
Certainly this process should be eliminated through the county charter reform committee's recommendations. In this time of budget cutbacks, has the commissioners frivolous fund not been addressed? why do they get to choose that my taxpayer dollars go to these organizations while others are being cut? This certainly IS buying votes. This should be severely curtailed.
I don't believe you just discovered this! It's a well-known fact that not only Commissioners but most politicians buy votes this way. Even judges send not too veiled threats whenever there's a brave attorney that wishes to run against one of them. "C" is the scarlett letter that should be carved on our politicians foreheads -"C" for CORRUPTION or for CROOKS, whichever one you prefer!
i didn't just discover this...i have been writing about it before i started this blog. I am educating people...there are many who don't know these $350,000 funds exist for each commissioner (that they can carry over by the way to an election year)
Exactly Genius O Despair, this has been going on. When the County commissioners were complaining of how much the budget was going to have to be cut, because of the dastardly state legislature, why didn't they offer up these funds?? why didn't the Herald expose it?
oh wait, I've gone insane.
This has been a pet peeve of mine for years,if i was a commissioner, i would disburse the money to the groups that would go out and campaign and vote for me in forcce. Most people dont care if their leaders are crooks, as long as they are getting theirs.
I have compiled a report of elections over the last 20 years (since just beofre single member districts) and with the exception of sorenson beating hawkins, no incumbent has ever lost. They have been elected by an average of 7500 votes, which is easy to acheieve if you are doling out 350K to organizations that in essence will be your campaign staff.
This , on top of removing cmpaign financing, makes it VERY hard to unseat a commissioner.The whole system sucks balls...
Where does one go to find out how the remaining members of the BCC spent theirs?
One way to find out is to do a public records request. Another way is to watch each commission meeting at the end of those meetings is when these funds are disbursed.
i have the printouts.
MAN'A'LIVE---TERM LIMITS WOULD DO WONDERS---LET'S SEEK & YE SHALL FIND. (THAT IS, FIND A WAY)
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