Natacha Seijas writes a rare oped in The Miami Herald, side-by-side Katy Sorenson on the Urban Development Boundary. Rare, because Seijas often claims from the dais not to read The Herald at all, whose "ink by the bucket" is mostly filled with lies-- her words.
Seijas begins with a mundane, pedestrian charge; calling the public debate on the expansion of the UDB as "full of acrimony and short on facts". It's true the debate has been full of acrimony. Former county chairman Joe Martinez sealed his reputation during the 2005 round of applications--12 in all, that Seijas supported-- when he called opponents, liars. Who can forget that the county commission voted, afterwards, to spend taxpayer dollars on its own "newspaper" to get out its propaganda?
Citizens paid nothing to go to public hearings and wait hours to testify on behalf of our quality of life and environment have every reason to resent the loss of representative democracy to special interests who dominate the Chamber. Spend a day at County Hall, to test this assertion for yourself.
As to Seijas' second point: If there is anything of which there is a surplus in relation to the arguments about the UDB in Miami-Dade County, it is facts.
Facts are piling up on county planner bookshelves in the form of studies and and data and information.
The best way to define Seijas position the statement that the UDB debate is "short on facts" is that which does not fit outcomes she has already determined to be the fact.
Seijas and the unreformable majority of county commissioners have not been "stalwart guardians of the line".
In 2004, they rolled over backwards to annex land in Florida City, outside the UDB, in furtherance of a Lennar project in wetlands-- in full knowledge that their actions limited the ability of county government to protect valuable Biscayne Bay wetlands. Seijas led that battle, as she did to approve the 12 applications in 2005 to move the UDB.
Seijas re-writes history, here, too. "Two years ago, while the county was negotiating a water use permit with the South Florida Water Management District, I advised applicants wishing to develop outside the UDB that their project should include an alternative water supply plan. The board adopted my suggestion as a condition for further consideration."
This is an outright lie. (In the case of the Hialeah application, which passed because the private developer said he would build water treatment facilities, with the City of Hialeah, there has been no public update on the progress of that commitment.)
In 2005, the only reason the UDB votes were reversed by the county commission, upholding the veto by Mayor Carlos Alvarez, was due to a last-minute visit to Seijas' office by the director of the South Florida Water Management District, Carol Wehle, and FDEP chief Colleen Castille. They took Seijas to the proverbial woodshed for failing to protect Miami-Dade's water supply yet approving the applications to move the UDB. It was a private humiliation that served its purpose.
What Seijas then did to cover her tracks was to fire the WASD director Bill Brandt.
To read Seijas claiming leadership in protecting the UDB; nothing could be further from the truth. For fifteen years, as Seijas --Miami-Dade's Queen of the Mean-- antagonized one environmental group after another, bottling up improvements to Miami Dade's water supply and quality: all in furtherance of the agenda set by the Latin Builders Association and South Florida Builders. And, then, there is the Homestead Air Force Base.
If it is true that her support for moving the UDB resulted in "infrastructure benefits", how does she explain that today Miami Dade's water supply is at risk from contamination by carcinogens introduced by the industry she blindly supports, rock mining-- or, the suppression of science related to the wellfield protection zone that resulted in at least one developer being able to move the UDB in 2003?
This last point is a most serious one, because Seijas ends her bizarre and rambling editorial with a call to science.
Seijas claims to want to "bring some calm to this stormy, sometimes malicious debate" by calling in the EPA. "A fair and objective evaluation of our UDB policy is long overdue."
Seijas obviously missed the Earth Day press event by the Union of Concerned Scientists on April 23, 2008: "An investigation of the Environmental Protection Agency released today found that 889 of nearly 1,600 staff scientists reported that they experienced political intereference in their work over the last five years."
Seijas isn't interested in fair, objective science. "Distorting science to accomodate a narrow political agenda threatens our environment, our health, and our democracy itself." I think we've said that, about ten thousand times on this blog.
There is nothing wrong with either Miami Dade County's professional planning staff, or the policies that relate to protecting taxpayers from the runaway costs of suburban sprawl.
It is really a shame that the hotly contested election for US Congress in the districts most affected (Diaz Balarts' and Ros Lehtinen's) take no position on the Urban Development Boundary. There are important federal issues involved, here, too: the suppression of science related to Everglades restoration and the costs of suburban sprawl and climate change. It would be interesting to know Raul Martinez' views.
And what a shame that certain county commissioners who should know better-- to protect their own poor, inner city constituents for whom movement of the UDB is a penalty-- march in lock-step with Seijas. She and the development lobby are misleading them. What a shame.
12 comments:
I thought she didn't read anything that bought ink by the barrel.
What staffer do you think wrote her piece, DeGrandy or Murphy?
Both. Edumnson is done. Gone. Kaput.
From the Tallahassee Democrat
.. what is happening to SB 474
What are the position of M-D legislators?
March 31, 2008
Slower growth
State projections have a silver lining
For more than half a century, growth has been one of Florida's economic pillars. It's why the Sunshine State is no longer just a sleepy tourist destination and instead the fourth-largest state in population, so demographically diverse that many consider it a microcosm of the nation.
Markets thrive where people want to live, and many connected to real-estate development have enjoyed great prosperity over the past several decades. In addition, the taxes and fees generated by growth are the revenue streams that finance a wide range of public services.
Growth has been good in most respects.
But not in all. That's due in part to the failure of state and local governments to adequately manage growth so that it continues to be a benefit rather than a detriment. Roughly 1,000 people a day make someplace in Florida their new address, and this phenomenal rate of growth, while spurring the housing industry, also has strained the public purse.
Schools, roads, sewer lines, police and fire protection all cost big bucks, and many Floridians aren't enamored with having to pay for them.
When statewide growth projections from the University of Florida were released last week, groans in some offices across the state were almost audible. That's because the housing bubble's burst and economic downturn are being blamed for the lowest growth rate in the state in 30 years.
That news out of Gainesville is another setback in a challenging financial environment.
Yet the news doesn't have to be all bad. A slower rate of growth unquestionably will hurt profits, which in turn will affect governments. But the slowdown also can be viewed as a chance for the state and cities and counties to regroup, review and revise their growth-management strategies — particularly with the crucial need to reduce carbon emissions.
Tom Pelham, secretary of Florida's Department of Community Affairs and a keynote speaker at Leon County's Climate Action Summit on Friday, has for years been a strong advocate of sensible growth. He understands that poorly regulated growth is a short-term gain in exchange for long-term losses — and that it's important to make sure the voices of citizens aren't muted.
The DCA chief and other advocates of sensible growth are behind Senate Bill 474, which includes restraints on coastal development; several checks and balances on local comprehensive-plan amendments; and requirements to provide more affordable housing.
When the water in a lake recedes, it offers an opportunity to clean the lake bottom. The same is true of growth. A reduced rate of increase can provide policymakers a pause so they can craft a more sustainable growth strategy.
DeGrandy wrote it...or anyone but her.
Wonder where Rubio is, on the UDB?
For sensible growth
Tampa Tribune
Published Friday, March 28, 2008 6:57 PM
With his ear trained on antitax groups, maybe House Speaker Marco Rubio just couldn't hear the citizens who nearly forced an antigrowth amendment to the ballot this fall. But if he really thinks Florida would be better off with no development controls and no state growth agency, he will become the poster child for Hometown Democracy.
Back in January, at a business editors' summit, Rubio went so far as to suggest he might try to abolish the state Department of Community Affairs, which oversees growth-management laws. "Regulatory compliance," he was quoted as telling the group, "is a tax."
If regulatory compliance is a tax, then the construction industry clearly has been exempted. Look around: clogged highways, overflowing landfills, water shortages, condo towers. The 1985 Growth Management Act that developers warned would lead to widespread building moratoriums has instead served as little more than a speed bump.
The Hometown Democracy group is so fed up it wants to take some planning decisions out of the hands of city and county officials and put them to voters, and it missed the ballot this time by so few signatures that the 2010 ballot seems all but certain. The amendment's referendum requirement would be unwieldly, but is arguably less radical than Rubio's desire to abolish DCA altogether.
Community Affairs Secretary Thomas Pelham is doing his best to find a middle ground in this increasingly polarized debate. He has found some support in the Senate Community Affairs Committee, which is examining a bill that would take aim at one of the law's clear abuses. Cities and counties were required to adopt growth blueprints, but they have turned around and changed those plans so often — roughly 12,000 times last year — as to make them meaningless. The point of the plan was to guide development, not merely to serve as a starting point.
The limit on plan changes is one of several ideas Pelham has introduced in an attempt to address legitimate concerns about how growth laws have been abused. But, almost halfway through the session, Rubio's House has shown little interest.
Some House members are parroting the line offered by development lobbyists, saying the state can't clamp down during a weak economy. But this may be a particularly opportune time to bring more certainty to growth regulations. The market slump, not growth regulation, is what has slowed new construction. This pause, as demand catches up with supply, offers a chance to chart an orderly course on future development.
Pelham simply wants to restore some balance to growth management, in part by preventing cities and counties and developers from constantly changing their blueprints. There is nothing radical about that, which is why he deserves a fair hearing in both legislative chambers.
facts? figures? You mean like the ones provided by the DCA? I loved Sorenson's response letter in the Herald - How do you like those numbers Natacha?!
About 2 years ago some of the growth machine attorneys started working county hall for a "way to streamline" UDB applications. Sounds like they finally got Seijas on board.
If she is serious, she can sponsor a change to Miami-Dade's Growth management policy to discourage growth. All counties and municipalities have the option of enforcing growth management laws to "encourage" growth, "discourage" growth or "accommodate" growth. Miami-Dade opted to accommodate growth and has never changed that position. Time for Seijas to advocate for "discouraging" growth. The water agreement she loves to talk about is at least 10 years in the future and probably longer. Maybe never if there is no funding. No good can come from Seijas wanting to "study" the UDB.
Atlanta Journal Constitution:
Is EPA exec still a pal to polluters?
> Published on: 06/06/05
It sounds like something out of a John Grisham best-seller. But the Big Hill Acres story isn't fiction, and neither is its cast of characters, including a now prominent federal environmental official.
Go back to the mid-'90s. Robert Lucas Jr., a developer in Grisham's native state of Mississippi, subdivides 2,600 acres near the Gulf Coast and starts selling off lots to lower-income residents for mobile homes.
However, the Big Hill Acres subdivision also happens to contain roughly 1,200 acres of federally protected wetlands, as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers tells Lucas in 1996. Undeterred, Lucas begins to illegally drain or fill those wetlands without a permit. He also hires an unscrupulous engineer, M.E. Thompson Jr., who is willing to lie and certify that septic tanks on the property have been installed properly, even though he knows that many of the septic units are sitting in wetlands and are almost guaranteed to fail.
Hundreds of lots are sold, families move their mobile homes onto the property and connect them to septic tanks, and the nightmares begin.
With every major rainfall, homes are flooded; hundreds of gallons of raw sewage flow up out of toilets and run unchecked through the subdivision and into nearby streams. Families who had invested meager life savings in their lot abandon the property.
By 1997, when the Health Department raises a ruckus about sanitation problems caused by faulty septic systems, local county commissioners respond — by attacking the Health Department. According to later court testimony, one commissioner told a Health Department staffer that the department "would either play ball with M.E. Thompson or [the commissioner] would cut the Health Department budget." They didn't play ball; the budget was cut drastically.
By 2000, state and federal regulators get involved. Lucas then hires lawyer Jimmy Palmer, who had just retired as head of Mississippi's Department of Environmental Quality, to make the problem go away.
And when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers finally demand that Lucas stop selling lots in the development, he agrees. Then he goes right on selling wetlands property to unsuspecting buyers.
Finally, the EPA takes the rare step of referring the case for criminal prosecution, something it does only in the most egregious of cases. Lucas, his daughter Robbie Lucas Wrigley, and Thompson are indicted on 22 counts of violating the Clean Water Act, 18 counts of mail fraud and one count of conspiracy.
Palmer, the former head of Mississippi's environmental protection agency, is subpoenaed to testify in the case this spring. In front of the jury, he recalls believing that the federal EPA had been heavy-handed in its dealings with Lucas, that the federal agency had acted unethically and that it had been inflammatory in how it had communicated with Big Hill Acres residents. He testified about a letter he had written to EPA officials accusing them of a crusade to destroy Big Hill Acres.
Two things make that testimony interesting:
First, the jury didn't buy it. In less than a day of deliberations, it convicted Lucas and his fellow defendants on all 41 counts. They now face up to 30 years in federal prison, and given how cavalierly they flouted the law, they deserve it.
And Palmer, the man who had described the EPA's enforcement actions against Lucas as heavy-handed, unethical and inflammatory?
Today, he serves as head of EPA's Region 4, based here in Atlanta, overseeing enforcement of environmental laws for eight southeastern states. He was appointed in October 2001 by President Bush.
In that job — one of 10 regional administrators around the country — Palmer now helps to decide which cases to pursue and prosecute, and on occasion even takes the lead in settlement negotiations with polluters and other violators of environmental law. Not surprisingly, Region 4 staff members are reportedly held under tight rein, discouraged from aggressively pursuing violators.
Unfortunately, Palmer did not respond to an interview request, turning down a chance to explain how he might see things differently now that he's running the agency he once criticized so harshly.
But it all leads you to wonder whether he sees his job as protecting the environment, or protecting polluters.
Gimleteye writes: history of the woodshed... sort of in the Herald.
January 28, 2006
Miami Herald
MIAMI-DADE COUNTY
Water chief resigns
The head of Miami-Dade's Water and Sewer Department quit Friday amid growing concern that the county has done little to plan for growth.
BY TERE FIGUERAS NEGRETE
tfigueras@MiamiHerald.com
Miami-Dade's top water official abruptly resigned Friday following news that the county's long-term water plans were alarmingly short-sighted -- and could shut the tap on future development.
Bill Brant, head of Miami-Dade's water and sewer department, submitted his resignation less than 24 hours after County Manager George Burgess met with state water managers.
Burgess said he was caught off guard by the urgency of the state's appeal to the county to revamp its water plan -- an urgency Burgess said Brant failed to convey.
''Frankly, I don't like surprises,'' said Burgess. ``I think it would have been tough for him to carry on.''
A phalanx of state water managers -- backed by the head of Florida's Department of Environmental Protection -- warned this week that Miami-Dade's 20-year water plan threatens the Everglades and ignores state conservation requirements.
At issue is Miami-Dade's application for a state permit that would allow the county to increase water consumption by roughly 100 million gallons a day to meet its population's needs in the next 20 years.
Under new growth management laws passed by the Florida Legislature last year, counties need to show they have the water to supply the demands of new development. County planners estimate Miami-Dade will grow 25 percent during the next two decades to 2.7 million residents.
But Miami-Dade does a poor job of using the 350 million gallons of water it currently pulls each day from the Biscayne Aquifer. Only 5 percent is actually treated and reused. Some counties, such as Collier, reuse 100 percent of their water.
The county's plan for the next 20 years consisted of little more than tapping deeper into the Biscayne Aquifer, which siphons precious water from the Everglades.
The South Florida Water Management District has been in talks with the county's water department for nearly two years but says Brant's department has balked at coming up with alternative water sources.
....
Replacing Brant is the head of the county's Department of Environmental Resource Management, John Renfrow. Burgess said Renfrow's familiarity with water issues and his background as an engineer made him a natural choice.
Brant's department came under scrutiny last year after an audit showed that millions of dollars in developers' water and sewer fees went uncollected. Brant disputed those findings and claimed his staff didn't know that some high-rises on the list even existed. The head of the county's auditing and management service called the department's claims ``disconcerting.''
State water officials met two days this week with the 13-member county commission, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez and Brant's boss, Burgess.
''I learned far more at that meeting than I should have,'' said Burgess.
Commissioner Natacha Seijas, who chairs the county's infrastructure and land use committee, said she is ''terribly, terribly disappointed and absolutely surprised'' by the news from the state.
The majority of commissioners, including Seijas, have long been under fire from environmentalists who say the county has ignored the effects of aggressive development.
...
Miami-Dade's average monthly residential water bill is $32.86; Broward's is $51.61; and Lee County, which reuses 80 percent of its water, bills $61.71 monthly.
''This is the problem with building first and planning later,'' said Commissioner Katy Sorenson, the most strident environmental advocate on the dais.
She said she was stunned at what little priority Brant's department had given to coming up with solutions, noting that Miami-Dade applied for its new permit in 2004, just days before it was to expire.
She also said she was concerned her colleagues' stance on development issues may have made Brant reluctant to red-flag the water issue.
''I hope it wasn't due to political pressure,'' she said. ``Some commissioners don't like bad news about the cost of unbridled development.''
Carol Ann Wehle, executive director of the South Florida Water Management District, said Friday that ongoing talks with county officials were ``extremely positive. We feel like they understand the seriousness of this matter.''
SEIJAS & MARTINEZ IN A LOVERS QUARREL...BOTH NEED A DAMN PLANE TICKET STRAIGHT OUT OF THE BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS!!!
SEIJAS & MARTINEZ IN A LOVERS QUARREL...BOTH NEED A DAMN PLANE TICKET STRAIGHT OUT OF THE BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS!!!
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