Miami Has It’s Own Elvis! By SunshineUnderground

Elvis Cruz, a firefighter by trade and a community activist since 1980, was part of a group of residents in the Morningside neighborhood that mobilized in 2002, as the condo wave that helped fuel the housing craze that lead to the housing bust was just beginning to hit Miami. A developer wanted to put a 252 foot tall condo next to a one story, single family house, and Cruz teamed up with fellow residents to stop the project. Six years later, and he and his fellow neighbor-activists are involved in seven different condo disputes and five law suits.

He see himself as fighting a battle with two fronts. Elvis works to stop projects that he believes will contribute to over-development, and is active on the legislative level, participating in efforts to amend the comprehensive plan, and elect city officials who will support the initiatives of the community organization Miami Neighborhoods United, in which Cruz plays an active role.

I talked to him last week as part of my effort to understand how South Florida politics works.

SunshineUnderground: You've told me that more people need to get involved in civic activism, what do you see as the most urgent need now?

Cruz: The most urgent need now is the same as the most urgent need any time, which is to elect good people to the city and county commissions, and by good, I mean people that are interested in protecting neighborhoods.

Let me step away from that line of thought and give you a look at the big picture, the whole scenario.

Politically, it works like this: there are two political "parties" in Miami, they are not legitimate political parties in the traditional sense of Republican or Democrat, but they are parties in the sense that they are mind sets, camps, group-thinks. One of them is the developer party, if you will, the special interest party, but primarily development. The main industry down here is real estate and real estate development construction. We don't build airplanes or cars, we don't really make things other than exploit the land for real estate purposes.

OK, that's the one party, the for-profit special interests. (hit read more)
The other party is the quality of life party, the public interest party. That is a much larger party in terms of numbers, because that would include anyone that values their neighborhood, and their home. They want their quality of life to stay high and they don't want their streets congested or their schools overcrowded. The people of this "party" just wants things to improve but they are less organized than the for-profit people. The for-profit group gets organized just by coincidence of interest, they want the city to be lenient in its attitude toward development, so they gravitate towards any candidate that is pro-development, and lavish them with campaign contributions.

SunshineUnderground: There have been posts in this blog, and articles in The Herald, about how hard it is to take on incumbents because of their financial advantage, which in large part comes from real estate/development. How do you counter that?

Cruz: It's not easy because the vast majority of voters are quite apathetic. People are a combination of lazy and busy, unless they are directly threatened by something, they generally won't get involved, unless it's their ox that is being gored, as they say. So most people find it more comfortable to just sit on the couch and complain about bad government than to actually get involved.

So how do you counter it? It ain't easy. Hopefully you recruit people, get them involved. Hopefully, when a young guy moves into town, and has an interest, you talk him into being a civic activist, instead of just writing for a blog. (GENIUS: HEY ELVIS DON'T TRY TO STEAL OUR REPORTER!)

SuneshineUnderground: But what do I do, or what does someone in a similar situation do?

Cruz: Find like minded people and hook up with them, and say, hey, how can I help? That's the way it works.

sunshineundergroundfl@gmail.com
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If you want to work with Cruz, or Miami Neighborhoods United, contact him at ElvisCruz@mac.com