I searched from 11/01/08 to present on the Miami Dade County Lobbyist list to get the skinny on who of note is signing up clients. Ron Book recently signed up with Lennar and WRS Infrastructure & Environmental. Old timer, Miguel DeGrandy (Natacha’s favorite son) has American Earth Movers, Inc., Lanzo Construction Co., and RM/LLC Joint Venture. Miguel Diaz De La Portilla (is he really running against State Senator Julio Robaina?) is representing, Gurri Matute, PA, MCM Corporation and Solutions Construction, Inc. Apparently State Rep. Erik Fresen is a new golden boy lobbyist representing Zoning applications for such clients as:
I & D Associates, Armando Garcia, B & F Marine, MD Holdings II and Gold River Corporation. Mario Garcia-Serra is representing Greenberg Traurig (why do they need a lobbyist?). Niesen Kasdin is representing McCormack Baron Salazar Inc. and Robert Krawcheck is representing Krome Gold Ranches II, LLP. Dusty Melton has Corporate Park of Doral and WRS infrastructure & Environmental. My most un-favorite lobbyist, Sergio Pereira also has WRS Infrastructure & Environmental and Spillis Candela DMJM.
Who are American Earth Movers and McCormack Baron Salazar? They each have a lot of lobbyists. Ramon Rasco has that old favorite, Secure Wrap of Miami, Inc. Greenberg Traurig’s Clifford Schulman has Leistel Tsi-A-Fatt. Rawn N. Williams has the hardest job of all, he signed up to represent Merrill Lynch 1/14/2009.
21 comments:
When Dusty Melton looks at the Everglades, he doesn't see birds, alligators or sawgrass. All he sees aredollar signs. Remember when he set up the deal with the school board to sell them swampland for a new school? Have another bottle of champagne on us, Dusty!
Signed
The Taxpaper
PS. How do you get your sh*t not to stink like that?
Someone has to pay the bills.
Someone has to pay the bills...I hear that often. I just don't understand how some people can live within their own skin. There has to be ways to make money that don't cost the public millions in bad contracts.
Ill take 3 Pereiras over one Degrandy...Miguel breaks the slime-o-meter
Yes, Miguel is running for his brothers Alex's seat, and Alex will be running for the State Rep seat currently held by JC Planas..Seems like Alex cant get a real job, so he has to stay on the public tit, squeezing us all dry and passing his bar tabs around the lobbying core. I wonder if Alex Dias de la Portilla has paid taxes on all the free drinks he has received...
Im so sick of Diaz de la portillas...can we just PLEASE do away with them? NOW!!!
McCormick Baron are trying to build low cost housing in Overtown/Liberty City.
Dear Taxpayer (and, in a moment, Geniousofdespair):
I posted, or tried to post, a semi-lengthy retort a short while ago. It did not seem to get to its intended destination. I'll now try again. If at some point the technology places both versions online, I apologize for my lack of skill and any confusion that ensues. On the other hand, given the content of my remarks, perhaps I was filtered out and will be once again. We shall soon see and know.
As to Taxpayer: I love your breezy style, but please allow me to drizzle a little champagne rain across your form-over-substance world. The School Board's July 14, 1999 vote to purchase 100 acres of my client's West Kendall property was one of the proudest accomplishments of my entire, 26-years-and-running, local lobbying career.
Here are the facts missing from your thin, glib posting:
1. When I see the Everglades -- and I am absolutely confident I have tent-camped on its dirt in various parts of it far more primitive than you have probably ever even witnessed merely with your eyes, compared to my butt -- I see the Everglades. You may, in fact, know me. But you manifestly do not know who I am.
2. When my client's transaction was considered by the School Board 9.5 years ago, every classroom in nearly every part of Miami-Dade County and at every strata of our public education system was bursting at the seams because of the District's real-world inability to keep pace with residential development decided by others. The opportunity to acquire, in a single transaction, 100 acres -- three school sites' worth -- at the vortex of suburban growth-explosion, quite frankly, was a veritable gift to the School Board. Its members merely needed to decide yes or no. A super-majority wisely decided yes.
On 60 of those 100 acres later was built John A. Ferguson Senior High School. It opened over its as-built enrollment capacity. On 30 nearby (already zoned and ready for townhouse development, incidentally) acres later was built Lamar Louise Curry Middle School. It, too, opened over its as-built enrollment capacity. Today both of those schools are surrounded by a veritable ocean -- not a lake -- an ocean of single-family homes. I'm not certain what happened to the final 10 (also townhouse-zoned-and-ready-for-construction) acres corner-to-corner adjoining Curry Middle School, fully ready and functional for an entire elementary school. Perhaps they remain a School Board real estate asset, or perhaps a third educational facility has been constructed as well. I simply do not know on that detail.
All 100 acres were and are within the Bird Drive Basin, a defined wetland-sensitive geographic zone known by everyone in the governmental, development and environmental communities-of-interest for at least a decade prior to the School Board's decision. Well before this transaction, countless homes, stores, libraries, houses of worship and other structures had been built in accordance with the Miami-Dade County Code that governs development in that swath of land.
Swampland, Taxpayer? Not at all. Shame on you. Wet, and long-ago defined as such, for everyone with half a brain? Absolutely! And God bless Board Member Marta Perez, who displayed and distributed a thick wad of photographs, taken the weekend prior to that mid-July meeting, of her slogging through the site. She railed against the purchase at that Wednesday meeting, among other reasons due to the need for substantial fill prior to construction. And she proved her point dramatically: Whoever was holding the camera at the roadway's edge had to aim it down dramatically to snap her photo, hands over head and looking up in obvious disbelief. I respected her then and respect her now, but she was dead wrong on that vote that day.
The pricetag on the 100 acres was slightly less than 3% greater, as I best recall, than the average of two appraisals done by the School Board during its nine-month evaluation process -- appraisals totally unknown to my client and me through to the end of transaction negotiations. Because appraisals virtually always lag behind true market values in a growing real estate market (and real estate values were strongly on the uptick back then), six of nine School Board members concluded that paying a slight "premium on paper" was a prudent investment in our children's educational infrastructure where it was needed most. Fortunately, those six Board members prevailed and a remarkable number of children have been educated in (at least two) neighborhood schools since their openings. . . with tens of thousands of educational beneficiaries yet to come.
As to Geniousofdespair, if you are nice enough to run my picture it would be much appreciated if you would spell my name correctly. I know, who really cares about the details? Taxpayer does not, but I do.
Further, with regard to my picture, I note that it originally accompanied a newspaper article about my longstanding, and continuing, personal jihad against illegal billboards and murals that blight our entire community. Which brings me to this semi-related observation: Nothing more certainly proves the absolute vacuousness of the tree-hugging, bark-eating environmental community, in my estimation and to me personally, than the abject failure of its members to even attend -- much less participate in -- the regular diet of governmental hearings on the most visual, visible, demonstrable, insulting, overpower, domineering and provable-by-mere-photograph, white-collar, criminal, polluting violations of the countywide Sign Code of Miami-Dade County.
These quality-of-life regulatory hearings have been very publicly noticed and conducted regularly, in a variety of government jurisdictions, in recent years. At most a mere two or three souls from the self-anointed green elite -- the so-called aesthetic watchdogs, the folks who love to rail against the evil lobbyist empire hereabouts but who never seem to get off of their lazy butts and try to influence the course of important outdoor advertising legislation -- show up, awake. The rest of the "vast" urban environment community seems, repeatedly, to remain in bed, asleep and content to snooze the day away. Just a passing observation. And an accurate, provable one.
Finally, Geniousofdespair, although I appreciate inclusion in your Lobbyist Hit Parade you really do us industry stalwarts an injustice if you only focus on our few registrations since last November. Rather you should look at every lobbyist's annual expense report -- might be some interesting data there, I dunno, on file with the Clerk -- to see who really represents whom and in what measure. A modest suggestion from the dean of the corps.
Dusty Melton
P.S. For the record, my shit does stink.
I fixed the spelling of your name Dustry.
What's going on with our Fish and Wildlife Commissioner???
Dusty Melton has been tireless in attempting to reduce the visual pollution caused by billboards, mural ads and other obnoxious forms of outdoor advertising.
Ideally more citizens and regulators should notice that our view corridors and vistas are being obstructed and polluted by massive billboards. Many of the newest billboards are 7 to 8 stories tall and they are overly illuminated. They ruin the views from our highways and they ruin the views from our highrises. Shame on whoever is granting permits.
We all benefit from Dusty Melton's efforts to reduce visual pollution.
Dusty Melton is my Dad, and though I may not be 100% knowledgeable on all of his actions and endeavors, I know how hard he works to make Miami and the world a better and more beautiful place for all of us to live in. He works tooth and nail to put his FIVE children through collage, three of us out of state, and one now going to Law School.
So, from his the young and not-so-naive 21 year old daughter, don't trash my Dad if you don't have enough courage to sign a name.
Thanks.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Melton
Elizabeth, it is really sweet that you are standing up for your dad's honor from your out of state perch.
You may want to spend a little more time in spelling class or at least learn to spell check. I trust your father is not putting his kids through COLLAGE (although I have a lovely vision of his collage of kids and billboards in my mind).
And yes, the billboards are ugly and illegal, but really they are less important an issue than that of saving South Florida, the Everglades and inhabitants from the perils of overbuilding and lack of water.
I am happy that Dusty took the time too respond. His response has firmly given me a look into who he is-and he is a lobbyist to the end.
Arthur Avalos
Give Elizabeth a break on the spelling. Spelling DOES NOT COUNT on this blog.
By the way Dusty, I am working on getting those expense reports, good tip.
Elizabeth Melton makes a very good point, not letting people know who you are, what your background is and what your credentials are regarding the topic reduce creditability when taking potshots at people and companies. Some may call it downright cowardly. At least the “Mainstream Press” has authors that identify themselves. Both bloggers and many of there guest bloggers hide behind ghost names while taking pot shots at others. As for her spelling, so what, she made her point and did so using her name.
I will stop being Anonymous when G.O.D. and Gimlet do the same. BTW don’t think you are hiding behind your Anonymous comment posts. The readers of the blog may not know who you are but the blog owners get some information as to your IP address and such so they can see some connection between different names you may use.
Trust me, every lobbyist in Miami Dade County knows my true identity as does the majority of the County Commissioners. I don't really care if you reveal yourself or not.
As to your second point...I do not get information on our readers or connections between names they might use. I don't know who individual readers are unless I know the person personally and they told me the name they are using in Blog Town -- like Mensa. I don't know/have a clue who MODERATE is and he (he said he had a wife) has been writing forever on this blog. I have no idea who you are anonymous above, nor do I care to know.
Spelling should count,
as in "DeLaTortilla"
CleanMiamiDade
Dusty, maybe you can help do something about all those unsightly corroplast political signs lingering/hanging around Miami since the last election.
We would love to see some legislation & stiff fines to fight this problem.
cleanmiamidade@gmail.com
Mr. Avalos:
It would appear that though you find it prudent to point out a small typing error on my part, you might want to double check your own grammar when you write "Dusty took the time TOO respond". I do believe there should be one 'o' not two.
:)
Elizabeth
Hey Dusty, Were not you a lobbyist against Redland incorporation? Seems I saw you lurking with DeGrandy, the bankers, commissioners and the developers during the hearings. So if you love the Glades so much why would you fight incorporating our rural agriculture buffer into a city to get it out of the hands of the unreformable majority? Dusty, you're as bad as DeGrandy, Shiver, Rodney and all the other scum bags making a buck off of our environment and quality of life.
Gimleteye writes:
In respect to the identity of bloggers; there is a long tradition of commentators writing under pseudonyms. We are not breaking any new ground here. As G.o.D. points out; regular readers who are curious, know who we are.
Ferguson HS is a tragedy and it should not have happened. Of course there is a sea of houses there. You helped to pave the way. You know this.
Your daughter obviously loves you. That's sweet. I, for one, would be proud of the way she is defending you.
Unfortunatley, I think a lot of parents in this country will have some explaining to do. I know my son has challenged me on many occassion. It's a part of the plan, and that is a very good thing indeed.
Poor men lie and rich men justify. History cannot be relived, but it can be repeated. That makes today very important. Getting on the right side of the issue of urban sprawl would be a good thing, sir. If you daughter studies that subject at school, she may have some questions for you.
Post a Comment