That is the hard part: deciding my vote. Should I vote to give the wicked Queen more money and the rest of the "unreformable majority"? (Hit on read more)
The Miami Herald reported that Dade leaders reject reforms: Miami-Dade commissioners will ask voters for a huge pay raise but voted to reject almost every ballot item suggested by a government reform task force. The Charter Review Task Force originally tied the raise to 2 elements: 1) Having to give up outside jobs (a very good thing) and 2) Term limits. The Commissioners “untied” the pay hike from number 2 yesterday. So the citizens will have to decide on: Raise and NO outside jobs (without term limits). The reason I like the pay hike is because it is hard to get good candidates to run a $200,000 campaign for a salary of $6,000 a year. In fact, you have to wonder why they would run at all for that salary. Most of the unreformable majority (Gimleteye's phrase) in office are addicted to power, I call them "Power Sluts."
Tempting, really tempting but the thought of waiting for some of them to get arrested and/or be taken out in a body bag is too long for me. They shouldn’t have removed term limits. Because they did, I will probably vote no. Also I am unhappy because the Commissioners had the audacity to throw out the most important recommendations the Task Force made:
“... Ballot questions to make petition drives easier... and make it harder to expand the county's urban development boundary.”
23 comments:
I am not even tempted. I wouldn't give them a dime more.
The only thing the BCC deserves is a hasty removal from office.With the exception of Katie and Carlos, the board continues to fail to represent the citizens whom they are supposed to represent.
I wish there had been better coverage of yesterdays meeting because it was absolutely appalling to watch.
Perhaps it is time to reconsider our home rule charter.
When they vote as they did they are saying "we don't give a damn abou the average voter and they will vote for us anyway because they do not understand what is going on and we make them happy by doing little things for them." Very bad but true. reformers would have to go door to door and explain everything to every voter, and then we would have a slim chance of getting rid of the crooks.
Not without term limits. No for me.
No raise from this voter. I am so tired of their rational that "more money = more candidates". One hundred candidates could sign up and not one will win. The existing political machines, intimidation of anyone who attempts to run (read Alvarado's Miami New Times "The witch is at it again" last week), and lack of real public campaign funding means an incumbent cannot be beat- why try? The best I can do, since they rejected any meaningful charter change, is thumb my nose at their raise.
The commission meeting Friday to discuss charter changes was a sad commentary on county government. I did get small pleasure when Seijas spoke on the petition process. She is clearly still bothered by her recall attempt. She will never forget how a group of voters actually tried to exercise their rights. Maybe we should systematically try to recall all of them; not that it changed Seijas. But just to think that the recall eats at her makes it worth trying again.
No vote without term limits. Also agree with Anon 2, we need to go after home rule charter, at the state level. The charter is part of the state constitution.
I also think there should be court challenge to the tightening of the rules blocking petition initiatives. Amendment One says: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
At the county and state level our representatives continue to restrict the ability to “petition the Government for a redress of grievances”. In Miami-Dade all of the items in the first amendment are repressed.
I haven't stopped laughing after reading in the Herald about the raise. If it depended on my vote instead of a raise I'll show them the door. Let's get rid of the Home Rule Charter!
The Imperial commission...let's get Braman to help us get rid of them! We are tired of eating cake out here...
I am not so sure. I think it takes a pay raise to get better people running for office. If it works, these people might be more inclined to take the charter review suggestions and vote for them. I understand how you all feel, but I think it's worth a gamble. This sort of thinking is counter intuitive, but let me give you an example of what another person said to me about water. Not this time, but several years ago, they were asking residents to put bricks in their toilets and conserve water. This guy (who shall remain nameless) told me that he was telling his students to flush twice, don't use the bricks, use lots of water and scare the hell out of the south florida water management people as a wake up call for us not to over develop. It's a compelling thought, albeit anarchist. Now, taking this around to the commissionrs, I think we out to give them $150,000 annually, and then make a pledge that we are going to beat the bushes for good people to run, and then support and work for them in their campaigns. Hey, sometimes you have to think outside the box.
I have beaten the bushes, Frankly last writer, in a perfect world I would agree with you...but even if you pay them a million dollars, they need at least $300,000 to run a viable campaign. Some commissions raise nearly twice that and REMEMBER THIS: They have that $300,000 slush fund (which they can even carry over from year to year) to dole out to PTA's, and other groups to suck up. So in effect they have about three quarters of a million to throw around.
To repeal the home rule charter:
There is a court challenge to the commission's outrageous rules on petitions. It is in court now and the plantiff is Mayor Dermer. He was also on the charter review committee and said early on that the commission would not put anything important on the ballot.
And they buy all the unions.Shame on the unions for supporting a dysfunctional government.
A reader wrote an email giving their opinion on the pay raise for commissioners (thought it was pretty funny):
Absolutely Not.
Let them increase their prices for being bought off.
I am glad to see people are starting to link the importance of the salary issue to the petition issue.
If Braman or some other deep-pocket out there wanted to do something lasting, they'd help fund a petition gathering campaign to put the task force recommendation on petition gathering on the ballot by force of referendum.
The obvious irony is that the petition to clean up the petition process will require that the petition gatherers work under the draconian rules in place now. And is one of the reasons a deep-pocket is needed to help out.
With the petition process returned to the people, we could more effectively get legislation in place to dismantle the dictatorship.
You could restore the public campaign finance system for local offices and strip all the roadblocks the Commission put in to cripple it.
Then if you offered a decent salary, a guarantee of no outside jobs, and the ability to compete through public campaign financing, you could have a wider pool of candidates and they could match up better against the lobbyist fund-raisers.
Don't forget a very important tool abused by the commissioners and other interest groups -collection of absentee ballots. As a senior I get all the time calls from different groups, offering to mail me absentee ballots to be returned to them once completed. I can't understand how this is permitted by Elections.
The callers basically tell you what to vote for, praising their candidate or question on the ballot to convince you. Once they are told that despite my age I like to vote in person to make sure it won't be manipulated by anyone else, most hang up w/o even saying goodbye. Vile Natach won the recall with absentee ballots collected mostly through intimidation.
I'm watching the archive of the webcast/meeting now... it's so f$@#%ng discouraging. I don't expect voters will agree to raise their salaries, because the unreformable majority is so demonstrably drunk and in-love-with-their-power. But here's the thing: keeping the salaries the way they are, guarantees what the lobbyists want-- a bought, and paid for, county commission. I sort of agree with the poster who said, pay them $150,000 a year and guarantee that some good people would run. Pay them $300,000 for that matter. Miguel De Grandy, who fought Victor Diaz at every turn, must be smirking in the background: this is the outcome he wanted and got. The $6K salaries are what keeps Natacha Seijas in power and gives Bruno Barreiro the illusion that he is making a difference. Joe Martinez? Fuggedaboudit. In trashing the Charter Review Commission's other recommendations, the county commission virtually guarantees that the commissioners' salaries will not be raised-- but still, under the table or however they are getting paid off, through relatives construction contracts or whatever-- it's a job still worth a couple of hundred thou.
I think that we need 2 counties: split us up. I want to live in the non-home rule charter one.
And they cannot expect my vote for a raise.
I am thinking out of the box.
They need to give me a commission job description that includes no other job;
one that includes an exit door after 2 terms OR everyone on the commission has to run county-wide;
one that insists they have NO ties to any one working at or doing business with the county. The last part about nepotism includes the commissioners and staff and the mayor and his staff (which I guess is about 30 thousand people, so he ought to start checking his connections, minus the employees that the commission has to check).
Oh yes, make them ALL have computers and use them. Let them have typing, computer and for goodness sake, some financial training classes.
And last, but not least, check up on the comissioners and mayors gift funds (can you say AUDIT?). If you don’t provide the information like financials, and prove you are a viable non-profit (990’s?) or mom and pop business, don’t give them money. Mom and pop businesses are not usually run in your pjs and with curlers in your hair. Unless, you are one heck of a web master or virtual assistant.
The only way I would vote for raises is if it came with an absolute ban on outside employment (the easiest source for curruption). We wouldn't tolerate our mayor being on the payroll of a particular business he represents so why do we allow it with our commissioners?
Out of the box thinker (formerly anon) says...
I like the one about the two counties. Can I be in that one?
Although I believe in term limits, I don't think it will happen any time soon so I am probably going to vote for the amendment because having the outside employment causes big conflicts of interest. My commissioner, The dishonerable Martinez, is employed by the Latin American Homeowners Association. And people wonder why he pushes so hard to expand the UDB. I say vote yes to no outside employment and lets try to get term limits for the next ballot initiative.
Who voted to give them the $55,000 per year they get now? Is it legal?
And then, of course, most take money on the side. Pepe Diaz?
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