I read the December issue of "Miami Monthly" and disagree with the column on Holding The Line in their City Watch Section which says:"Miami Dade is getting help from the feds on its hotly contested Urban Development Boundary. The county is among three communities recently selected to participate in the Envrionmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Smart Growth Implementation Assistance Program, which will provide technical assistance, analysis and input from a team of national experts on the policies surrounding the UDB."
Miami Monthly, I think that this effort is being pushed as an end run around the State of Florida's negative findings on moving the UDB line, not to mention County's staff negative recommendations to the County Commission.
Is it true that Neisen Kasdin (former lobbyist for the Latin Builders Association and Builders Association of Florida and current lobbyist for Krome Groves Land Trust) who has been pushing to move the line on behalf of his clients is behind the EPA selection?
I don't look at this move as a GOOD THING. Crafty yes, good? No. Miami Dade is not getting "HELP" from the EPA (which will begin this effort early next year). I believe the Miami-Dade developers believe this is their only chance to turn things around in their favor: Go over the State of Florida's head.
5 comments:
To suggest that Miami-Dade County needs "help" on the Urban Development Boundary is laughable. The land use policy of the county was constructed sturdily over decades; isn't it a riot that the same Miami developers and land speculators who professed hatred of federal mandates turned in the last days of the Bush White House for help from the feds? Pay attention, state of Florida.
LUCKILY, this isn't going to be heard until AFTER Obama is in office, however, the Staff has been massaged for 8 years and we know that there will NOT be a wholesale firing at EPA. Actually the EPA has been invested in protecting watersheds, and the Unreformable majority spits on our watershed. That wouldn't make the EPA happy...
The resolution seeking the grant was Seijas' so there you go.
I expect the EPA will discover that we have good land use policies but that the elected representatives regularly ignore the recommendations and the policy. I doubt they would say anything directly about that.
And it is good that this grant will not actually start until the new administration is in since EPA staff has been stifled for the last 8-years. Maybe they'll be empowered enough to actually speak their minds.
Maybe that's another reason Lennar is pushing Parkland before the end of the year.
When I first read mention of the selection of the county, I thought it was strange to say the least. I can't remember where I saw it, but it was not in the Miami Monthly. I just dismissed it,(duh) and now I see that we are going to have a full time job protecting the county from the EPA who are going to think that the stories they have been fed are God's Honest Truth. Can't we get a break here? Are the pro-growth, anti-quality of life people cloning themselves faster than we can prepare for public hearings?
To be on point, I would like an explanation, how the guys like Kasdin, Baretto, Pino, Mayol and good old Price all manage to be on the inside track on these things?
Are they truly so powerful (or corrupting) that they make the rules and build the fences that keep the opposition at bay?
And where does the line get drawn, between 'doing a job for a client' and going into area where corruption becomes a a real possibility?
I'm baaack. Perhaps it might help for all you intelligent readers to write a letter to Obama letting him know what is really going on and asking him to prevent the Bush gangsters from hurting our land. We all know that the bad guys will be paying off those who make decisions so it will help if their President says something.
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