The coordinates of the Miami Dade County Commission are as follows:
To County Commissioners and staff:
First of all, you are in the midst of the biggest collapse in housing values in a century. A significant part of responsibility for this collapse falls on the shoulders of those decision-makers who did not ask or listen to tough questions about risk and the allocation of costs as Miami sprawled outward toward your campaign contributors.
Secondly, decisions have consequences. Budget shortfalls didn't come out of thin air. Now that you are in their grip, it's time you loosened the grip of the development lobby around your wrists.
On Thursday, you will meet to vote on applications seeking to move the Urban Development Boundary. The State of Florida has already estimated that the three applications do not follow state planning requirements-- the same report that your own staff submitted. You rejected your staff's advice last Spring--many of you said you wanted the benefit of the state's position. Now you have it. The last time this happened, in 2005, the South Florida Water Management District came down and took you to the wood shed before Mayor Carlos Alvarez' veto was sustained (except in the case of Hialeah). It was all quiet and polite, but remember your response? You fired Bill Brandt, director of the Water and Sewer Authority instead of telling the public, "you know what, we were wrong."
Fourth, we are all at sea level. The Miami Herald reports on today's presentation by an appointed committee lead by County Clerk Harvey Ruvin that has proposed recommendations for what the county can do on the complex issues of climate change: The Herald report mentions the unmentionable: zoning in changing flood plains. Pay attention to where sea level rise is going to occur, first, in Miami-Dade, and who is going to bear the cost: taxpayers, residents, property and business owners. (Guess who else is paying attention: insurance companies.)
To help orient County Commissioners, I'm reprinting a good editorial by Fred Grimm, published in today's Herald, for your consideration. There is another, by attorney Richard Grosso, that is not yet up on the Herald website but which will be posted, here, later.
Posted on Tue, Apr. 22, 2008
Tree huggers have company in this battle
BY FRED GRIMM
Once, a gathering like this would have been a sparse collection of quixotic losers. They always lost. Developers nearly always won these fights, pushing into the citrus groves and vegetable fields, bulldozing over their opposition, turning South Florida into an ill-planned mishmash of suburban sprawl.
The developers won because, well, what were they up against in the old days? A few tree huggers. The occasional community activist. ''Maybe some hippies in their Birkenstocks,'' said Miami-Dade County Commissioner Katy Sorenson.
Sorenson was at Kendall's Indian Hammocks Park at a press conference Monday called to rally opposition to yet another attempt by developers to bust through the Urban Development Boundary.
2008 VERSION
But this time out, the losers can't lose. In the 2008 version of the old game, the opponents now have a formidable array of supporters, none of them wearing Birkenstocks.
The county's own planners said no. The Florida Department of Community Affairs issued a 13-page opinion in February, blasting plans -- approved by the County Commission last year -- to build stores and 7,000 new houses outside the boundary.
Earlier in the month, the South Florida Water Management District had warned that the county's water allotment couldn't accommodate the projects.
And the bunch at Indian Hammocks Park Monday didn't seem so lonely anymore. The leadership of Hold The Line coalition claimed that some 140 different business groups and community organizations have joined up.
Richard Grosso of the Everglades Law Center said that all these years of unfettered growth in South Florida utterly disproved claims that mega-developments lead to lower taxes. ''They never pay for themselves,'' he insisted. Instead, taxpayers subsidized new suburban developments, paying billions for new schools, police and fire protection and roads.
Opposition to suburban sprawl may have once been the purview of environmentalists, but anyone who has examined their tax bills these last few decades has irrefutable proof. Approval of another 7,000 homes would be another giant county government giveaway.
This time out, it's the developers who seem nearly pathetic. They may lose outright Thursday when the proposals come up for another vote by the County Commission. If not, Mayor Carlos Alvarez promised the gathering Monday he would kill it with a veto.
If somehow they can wrangle a veto override (very doubtful), the Florida Department of Community Affairs will head to court. Grosso said the county would almost certainly lose.
7,000 NEW HOMES
And the notion of 7,000 new homes at the far western edge of Miami-Dade County, so many miles from the urban center, was up against something else, even more formidable. On Monday, the price of crude oil reached a record $117.60 a barrel. The question looms: who the hell is going to buy a suburban house at the edge of nowhere with gas soaring beyond $4 a gallon?
The outside-the-boundary proposals are such obvious losers, and so unpopular, the real question is why the developers persist.
Commissioner Sorenson ventured that it might be rote. ``They've always won in the past.''
It's as if they're stuck in time. Back in 1988. They still think they are just up against a few lonely tree huggers. And not the whole damn county.
• Protest coverage, 6B
© 2008 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miamiherald.com
18 comments:
It seems insane - no inane that commissioners would even consider wavering. They are not blind to the empty lots in the urban core, they suffer the same water restrictions. Commercial development add more traffic, waste more water just as bad as housing development. GET SERIOUS MIAMI!! Nice to see the Mayor doing something right
Don't count the Mayor in. Have you seen his list of contributors to his reelection campaign? Mostly developers and lobbyists involved in the housing debacle. I say, those guys don't waste their money unless they are certain to get something in return.
If you can't take their contributions and then vote against their issues, then you don't belong in elected office.
The Mayor will Hold The Line. Bank on it.
m
I think Lowe's will pack the place with neighbors...Lowe's are the most desperate of the three...isn't this the third time for them? And isn't it said the "third time is the charm" or was the saying "3 time loser"?
I say two out of the three are approved, but, not enough to defeat a mayoral veto with the exception of the Lowe's Application. At the end of the day, Mayor Alvarez is going to veto any that pass, no matter who has contributed to his campaign.
I would remind everyone though that he did not veto the Codina UDB application two years ago.
The one near kendall Sally Heyman defended at the South Florida Regional Planning Council.
Today at the county commission, Pepe Diaz was incoherent. You expect it from Javier Souto, his seat-mate next door, who--in response to nearly 90 minutes of a near-horror show on the likely impacts of global warming to Miami-Dade-- made a big deal of trash cans in his district. Whaaa-t? But Pepe was another story. He sounds reasonable enough, until you get to the part how he claims that his experience with flood control and protection taught him how everything was so badly out of wack with environmentalists ... and made some reference to two children who died in a flood. It is terrible that anyone dies in a flood, but Pepe--heelllooo-- we're talking about a mass exodus from Miami Dade with sea level rise if we can't act decisively now. Yes Pepe made his political mark helping bail out his lowest lying district from the effects of too much rain, but Pepe seems not to understand at all that sea level rise is going to affect his district first! Dude, the sea is coming in from the west, not the east! Did you watch Hal Wanless' presentation? So how then does Pepe square "balance" with moving the UDB? It's sad, really. Or really sad.
I thought this was an interesting article regarding Commissioner Gimenez. You can catch of glimpse of what he is about.
Jackson High students get real-life civics lesson from commissioner
BY DAVID RODRIGUEZ
A group of ninth-graders at Miami Jackson High School got a lesson on politics and how government works -- and were told not to believe everything they hear from politicians.
The advice came from County Commissioner Carlos Gimenez, who dropped in at the school at 1751 NW 36th St. for a Teach for America program.
''If I promised that every student would get $5 every time he goes to school, I would be lying, for I don't have that kind of power,'' Gimenez told the students.
The annual Teach for America program, held April 14-18 in schools around the nation, brings noted personalities to classrooms to talk about today's world.
''This program gives people like myself perspective as to what it takes to be a teacher and show the importance of teaching for our community,'' said Gimenez, who said he signed up for the program immediately after he was told about it.
The program is part of the Teach for America initiative that started in 1990 to offer recent college graduates a chance to teach so they can learn about the responsibilities that go with the job. It launched Teach For America Week in 1997.
Dorit Matthews, development director for Teach for America, said the program came to Miami-Dade in 2003 and the schools showed an interest in having teachers come here from all over the country.
''Our focus is to close the achievement gap for low-income students so they perform at the same level as their high-income peers,'' Matthews said.
During his stint in the classroom, students asked Gimenez about his life and he told them of his experience as a firefighter starting in 1975, then as a city administrator, before he decided to run for office. He rose through the ranks to become chief of the Miami fire rescue department in 1991. He served as Miami city manager from January 2003 to November 2004, when he was elected a county commissioner.
''I wanted to keep helping out, so I ran for office and here I am today,'' Gimenez said. ``I like my job today. It is very challenging, though not as rewarding as when I was running rescue.''
For world history teacher and Teach for America corps member Thomas Maffai, the importance of presentations such as Gimenez's lies in showing students that those who control government at a local and immediate level are people just like themselves.
The sessions also spark their interest in following what they do or even try and study to become them, Maffai said.
''Having someone who actually does the work we talk about gives what I teach a lot more worth,'' said Maffai. ``It is no longer about words on a book. For the students, [the session] is what makes it all real.''
Makes me wonder, if Marco Rubio was Mayor, how many UDB applications would he veto.
ZERO, NADA, ZILCH.
Breaking News:
One of the applications will be withdrawn at the start of the hearing tomorrow.
WHILLY BERMUDEZ WILL BE THERE TO OPPOSE THE MOVING OF THE LINE TOMM!!!
GOOD TO SEE A CANDIDATE THAT NEEDS THE MONEY, ACTUALLY OPPOSE THE DEVELOPERS!!!!
ZBASH Z
Good for you Whilly....you still can't win unless you have mega bucks.
Lowes and Brown won't withdraw...
I"m a dude from Homestead and spoke to Whilly last week and told him flat blank to go on record to oppose the entire UDB; it would give him "status" running in
Aug against 'ole' Joe Martinez in District 11. The voters will give him the votes, not the lobbists & developers with their cash.
It was also told him to campaign on getting Krome Ave designated "A historical highway." West Kendalites, slow growthers, will garner him many votes with less house tops & keep the corn fields.
Last anonymous- RIGHT ON! You speak great wisdom. More candidates need to learn that people cast the votes, not the developers; unless they pay to rig the election. And people are fed up with gross overdevelopment. Maybe Mr. Bermudez would be a breath of fresh air after ethnicly challenged Joe Martinez. Pay attention voters in District 11.
yes martinez is ethically challenged...but you can't win without a lot of bucks...a lot!!!! It is reality...I wish the people running against Martinez luck but you will see how money will control the election. i don't want you to waste your money.
Genius / Despair,
It's obvious that you know and understand that Martinez is no good for District 11, Miami Dade, The State of Florida, or any other government seat. Perhaps, not even back to being a cop on the beat.
As a resident and registered voter, you should do your part to help the right candidate win the election, instead of taking a pessimistic position. You and many of your readers choose to remain anonymous, but I am Marsha Harris- a 62 year old civil engineer who has spend my entire life in Florida as a resident of District 11. I have no problem stating my name and profession for what I feel to be right.
There have been various elections that the candidate "underdog" actually won over the incumbent or a challenger that raised 100X the amount of money. In this particular case, Mr. Whilly Bermudez is a much better suited and stronger candidate than Randolph Erbello. Candidate Bermudez is a young man with a lot of business sense and the right idea to help the constituents. Those that have met him, all tell me that he is very pleasant with tons of charisma and a real desire to make a change in our county. Many of us realize that this is the perfect candidate to show us what going against the grain will be like. We don't need another attorney or someone who has a strong political background. We don't need someone that is married. We don't need a savvy economist. We don't need anything close to what we have been getting all these years!
We just need new blood and strong business sense, that happens to have a soft heart towards the residents!
I truly believe that Whilly Bermudez will be the answer to a lot of our problems in District 11 and MDC.
Not to mention, changing the rigid ness of what we seek in our candidates. He is different, positive, and ultimately a breath of fresh air. If the developers and builders that back Martinez will continue to line his pockets, than we should find ways to help Bermudez win and send Martinez back to where he belongs!
Not take a stance that says that he cant win just because the developers aren't backing him. I mean who cares? This young man is the one who is spending the whole entire day at County Hall standing up to the special interest groups and HOLDING THE LINE~! So yes, its tough to challenge the special interests financially! But as residents, we should get Bermudez the money he needs to fight Ole Martinez! ( Not sit with our arms crossed)
People we need to stop with the negativity and ask ourselves if you want another 4 years of the same thing or head in a new direction. Myself, my husband, my kids, and all by family/friends will all be voting BERMUDEZ this election year! I've just emailed his campaign asking for a yard sign, or any other way that I can help this cause. I wont sit back and accept that Mr. Martinez gets another re-election term because of the builders! Not to mention, that he should have had a 4 year term limit in 2000.
Thank You
Marsha E. Harris & Family
District 11
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