Here is what Seth said recently in his open letter to Rebecca (well part of it) published in the SunPost:
“One of the things that always made you stand out as a writer was your cool perspective and humane empathy. You could expose people’s foibles without rancor or malice and leave them with at least as much dignity as they deserved. Usually more. These instincts kept you from becoming part of Miami’s band of judgmental, hand-wringing, name-calling, finger-wagging, tongue-clucking word Nazis marching in lockstep and pissed as hell that people tend to do what they want to do and not what writers tell them to do.But your piece on the county commission’s vote on the UDB was out of character. I don’t know where it came from, but your personal anger and contempt for both the general public and their elected officials was disquieting.
Sure, sure. Some of our county commissioners may not be the peers of the founders of the republic. But none of our local scribblers are budding Thomas Paines either!
And while people may say rude things about their local elected officials, they clearly are generally OK with them because they are always re-elected.” -snip-
Seth here is an "open blog" to you:
They are re-elected because they have legislated it impossible for anyone to run a viable campaign against them, they have a slush fund of $350,000 a year (which they can carry over to an election year) to dish out perks for votes, they raid the lunch programs they set-up for seniors and bus them to polling locations and finally, there are single member districts (we can only vote out/on one commissioner not 13). We haven't unseated a sitting County Commissioner in 14 years (Katy Sorenson did it). We only get them out with retirement or arrest.
9 comments:
Seth Gordon letters are always a thorn in my side. He thinks that he is being clever, but he doesn't fool anyone.
You're right, he's second string. But he's paid well for it. Everyone has their place in the pecking order and their purpose. It's how he makes his living. Blah, blah.
I read Souto's press release. He's not a mental midget. He's certifiably nuts.
Mental Midgets
How stupid do we have to be to keep electing these county commissioners?
By Rebecca Wakefield
Mayor Carlos Alvarez made an attempt to veto the vote, but was too weak to prevail. File photo
“Enough with the environmental terrorism and the slander of our community for the promotion of a hidden agenda!”
Thus spake County Commissioner Javier Souto, in a press release following the uproar about the commission’s recent vote to move the Urban Development Boundary for the sake of a Lowe’s and a glorified strip mall.
Well, someone from his office wrote this anyway. Had Souto actually said it in person, there would have been more in there about communism, Castro and, possibly, pigeons. But the essential attitude was his.
The lengthy release went on to explain that, despite the rhetoric of the terrorists, Miami-Dade County was actually being quite judicious in its breaking of the UDB. Heck, Souto argued, compared to the development-happy commissions of the ’70s and ’80s, this one is downright green.
Not the glam green of a Charlie Crist, or a Manny Diaz perhaps, but Souto pointed out that he’s always been big on cleaning up litter in his district, among other environmentally friendly acts.
Yes, it’s true that these two particular projects won’t be located in endangered wetlands, on the cold graves of Florida panthers. They’re across the street from existing commercial and residential developments. I’m not an absolutist who believes that any breach of the imaginary development line is akin to blasphemy. Some carefully considered projects could be reasonable beyond the UDB, when the greater social good is served. But that time is nowhere near.
What the “intellectually dishonest” extremists opposing the projects are worried about is the precedent set for opening the buffer zone to yet more sprawl. It is as if the nine commissioners who voted for the projects (Souto, Pepe Diaz, Joe Martinez, Natacha Seijas, Audrey Edmonson, Rebeca Sosa, Dorrin Rolle, Bruno Barreiro and Barbara Jordan) haven’t been at their own budget meetings forecasting dire cuts to public services.
Residential development is a drain on public infrastructure — schools, roads, water resources, public safety. Developers don’t pay the real cost of sprawl, so we must. In boom times, we can handle that, at least for a while. But growing faster than our britches sets up a situation in which older neighborhoods will have to fight newer ones for diminishing resources. It will eventually pit commissioners and various municipalities against each other.
The barn door the commission just opened is the hole through which a host of residential developers will march, despite the scoffing of Souto: “We may not see a boom in the residential real-estate market for many years, so this imaginary threat is not even based on fact.”
Meet Lennar Homes, the pushers of a proposed UDB-busting development on 961 acres to be called Parkland. (I love how developers name their projects after whatever natural elements they’re paving over.) For commissioners to argue that the approval of these projects is unconnected to Parkland and others in the pipeline is disingenuous at best.
The county’s own planning and zoning staff, and members of the Climate Change Task Force, not to mention the Florida Department of Community Affairs and numerous activist groups, have warned the commission that its decision was not a good one. Mayor Carlos Alvarez made an attempt to veto the vote, but was too weak to prevail.
Meanwhile, just this week, Florida International University's Metropolitan Center released a study documenting what we all already know — that there’s not enough affordable housing in the county.
Check this: Service industries account for 91 percent of local jobs and the median income is less than $27,000 a year. This means we don’t need more overpriced homes in western Miami-Dade, where people will have to drive ungodly distances through horrifying traffic to get to their hotel or restaurant gigs, or attempt to get buses that run on time.
People need to live near where they work, in sustainable, preferably walkable communities. They need a commission looking out for them, and working on a regional strategy for sustainable community growth, rather than cravenly sucking up to developers at every opportunity. Moving the line now for scant good reason benefits a handful of people at the future expense of many.
You know, there’s an election coming up later this year. Of the nine Blast the Line votes, Martinez, Seijas, Jordan, Barreiro and Edmonson are all up for re-election (although so far only Edmonson and Martinez have drawn credible challengers).
We can do better. Let’s dust off 70-year-old hipster and Clerk of Courts Harvey Ruvin (a five-time county commissioner primarily responsible for the UDB’s creation in the first place), who recently created a rap song on YouTube about the dangers of climate change.
It’s cute. He compares natural disasters to gang warfare and calls Washington politicians “mental midgets” for their lack of timely response to, or even recognition of, the problem. I wish he would turn that passion and creativity on our local midgets.
One last line from Souto’s press release: “It is obvious that there is disinformation and misinformation and political agendas. What’s important is that there has to be good planning and a constant watch.”
Great advice. We’ve got decent planning within the county bureaucracy, but long-term plans are routinely ignored by the majority of the short-term-minded commission. Let’s take Souto at his word and watch for the soonest opportunity to vote the bums out.
Comments? E-mail wakefield@miamisunpost.com
As a guy who certifies crazy people I do not think Seth is crazy. He is just a money hungry idiot who will do or say anything for money. He couldn't care less for the public, unless of course they were paying him. These greedy guys have no problem buying greedy politicians and when they actually own one, they then do all they can to halt logical intelligent people from exposing them.
True. And it's easier than cutting sugarcane.
I think it equal parts funny and sad that people can make sweeping comments about Seth Gordon, a man who I would bet my last dollar none of you posting here know personally at all. He is not an idiot nor is he as uncaring about the community as some here would portray him.
I do know him personally...and he embodies the true nature of a first string lobbyist, I disagree that he is second string.
Wasn't he on the Coconut Grove Village Council pushing the Home Depot in the Grove at the same time he was being paid by the Depot to lobby for them?
Hey, I know him too!
I first encountered him in the early 80s and he garnered no respect from his peers then.
Things haven't changed much.
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