Mayor Eugene Flinn's Dog, Ginger. By Geniusofdespair

This should make the Miami Herald very happy! At least someone is paying for the newspaper besides me, it appears to be Palmetto Bay Mayor Eugene Flinn.

Meet the Flinn family pet, Ginger, she has coffee perking in the kitchen to go with her morning read. Smart dog! I heard Ginger also collects absentee ballots.

Vote for Eugene Flinn if you live in district 8, he has been endorsed by Eye on Miami and Ginger too. (don't see video? try this link - This is the first video I set to music!!).

An Infill Opportunity at Auction...Hmmm. by Geniusofdespair

Yes, I know, I shouldn't poke fun at high density infill development, but I couldn't resist when I saw this ad this morning. They advertised this parcel as suitable for multi-family, senior housing, hospitality, assisted living facility and limited commercial. They said: "Blue Lagoon Miami is a unique waterfront multi-family development site." (Is this 'lagoon' a rock pit?)

They didn't mention in the ad what is across the lagoon...


Actually, being at the end (or beginning depending on the wind) of airport runways has it advantages. I am not sure what they are. Is that black pavement on the two runways (upper left-hand corner of photo) from the airplane's brakes engaging? They do say 'seniors housing' and 'assisted living' in the ad....hard of hearing folks. That makes sense. The property will be auctioned to the highest bidder over $5,000,000. The property appears to have cost the owners $1,650,000 in 1979.

Who is giving to Marco Rubio? By Geniusofdespair

I took a quick look at Marco Rubio's 975 page campaign report...which means about 50 pages (3 donors to a page is about 3,000 for this cycle ending August 12th - he collected $1,126,868.72). A pattern started to emerge as I scanned over the pages. Rubio is collecting a hell of a lot of money from retirees, the majority of the ones I saw were retirees, Glenn Beck must have them scared to death about medicare. Are these tea party folks? Many appear to be giving in installments, some $25 (a week?). There also appears to be many electronic donations as the amounts are odd. And, Rubio is getting much of his money from outside the State of Florida, from just about every State...Kansas? Maine? Wisconsin? What gives, how is he recruiting retired people from all over the country to finance his campaign in installments? And there were a lot of women giving to him, not just white men. I jotted down some donors and what State they are from just to annoy them (hit read more). When their names are googled by others, they will be directed here and identified as Rubio supporters so their friends can ridicule them, and their children can view them with horror henceforth:

Dunces from out of State who donated to Rubio:
Edwin Bastian, Brooklyn $205
Warren Bateman, N.C. $420
Henry Battle, Texas $1,300
Veronica Bauch, MN $243
Jerry Bauck, Oregon $460
Steven E. Ainey, PA $550
Patricia Ainley, CA $350
Ann Alexander, VA $650
Terry Alexander, MO $280
Stephen Alexieff, PA $255
Joseph Alhaoeff, PA $500
Donald Allison, CA $500
Eugene Allspach, TX $250
Mary Ames, ME $500
William Ammons, WA $300
Arlington Anderson, WI $1308
Frances Anderson, KS $375
Juanita Anderson, WA $466
Gail Andre, CA $570
John Andricosky, VA $400
Robert Acnadro, MA $300
Virginia Archer, UT $560
William Armstead, GA $1,000
Dana Aswad, CA $250
Victor Atkins, CA $4,000
Bruce Babcock, Ill $570
Beatriice Bacon, KS $500
Gwynn Bacon, CA $255

FLORIDA has some dunces too:
Edward Asplundh, Palm Beach $2,000
Lydia Basagotia, Village of Palmetto Bay $255
David S. Batcheller, Miami $335
Robert Beard, Jupiter $300
Arthur Alba, West Palm $260
Carlos Alfaro, Miami $250
John Alger, Homestead $1,000
Manuel Arias, Coral Gables $305

Amendment 4 on WBPT and in The Miami Herald: A Reflection ... by gimleteye

The program on Amendment 4 was taped on public broadcasting's "WBPT Issues" yesterday, Amendment 4 is the highly anticipated ballot referendum to change the Florida Constitution in the following way: the measure would break up the immoveable politics of land use, bonding developers and special interests to local elected officials through campaign contributions. It provides that changes to local master plans would be accomplished after a final vote; not by city or county commissioners, but by local voters. On the WPBT program I am one of the speakers in favor, alongside Lesley Blackner, co-founder of Florida Hometown Democracy. View it here.

Amendment 4 was also front page news in The Miami Herald yesterday. Here's my quote, as "... Alan Farago, a longtime Miami-Dade environmental activist who was among the early champions of the Hometown Democracy effort, describes growth management as "basically a carcass that has been fed over by special interests. Everyone who has warned me about the issues of unintended consequences [from Amendment 4] failed to acknowledge the set of unintended consequences to Florida's landscape is unacceptable now." Read the Herald story, here.

Last night, as I was drifting off I thought about a comment that one of the opponents of the measure, real estate consultant Jack McCabe, made on the WPBT program: how Florida's economy is dependent on development and construction and how it is necessary to keep expanding the tax base to avoid an economic collapse. This argument is the mother's milk of Florida's political and economic status quo.

I remember being shocked when I first heard the same argument nearly twenty five years ago. At the time, I had just moved to the Florida Keys. My children were young. I expected to be able to show them as they grew the profound beauty of the place I had experienced, first, in the 1970's. But by the late 1980's, all that was going, going, gone. I became involved in environmental issues and local politics as a result. Those politics revolved around land use decisions whose individual and cumulative impacts severely threatened unique natural resources that comprise the foundation of the Key's multi-billion dollar tourism economy. The majority of the Monroe County Commission proudly self-identified as "The Concrete Coalition". They were led on the county commission by a local version of Tom DeLay-- an insecticide salesman-- powerful local developers, land use lawyers and locals who were cashing in on real estate; and they all made exactly the same argument, with the same words, that Jack McCabe made yesterday: you have to expand to the tax base to be able to afford the costs of growth.

Amendment 4 grew out of the abounding frustration of citizens in Florida who saw what they valued in this place, trashed and overwhelmed by that illogic: inadequate schools, roadways, poorly planned infrastructure and sacrifices to quality of life that constantly creep in the wrong direction. And it is because of Amendment 4 that took years to arrive-- an election-- that its opponents waged and passed their own change to the Constitution; requiring that any further changes must pass in a general state-wide election by 60 percent or the referendum fails. No other state in the nation has such a high threshold.

Today in Florida, we live the consequences of what Amendment 4 seeks to address. The costs of growth have far exceeded the capacity of the tax base; that's why real estate taxes are increasing and the cost of government will continue to increase for the foreseeable future. The current system of growth management is not only broken at the local level, at the state capitol the Florida legislature is determined to erase the growth regulatory agency. Period. (Related note: check out what is happening to St. Joe Corporation.)

In the Keys when I was a quarter century younger, there was a young attorney for The Wilderness Society who stood at the podium and public hearings of the planning commission, who inspired me to dedicate much of my time as a community activist. His name is Ross Burnaman, and Ross is a co-founder of the Florida Hometown Democracy movement. In the early 1990's Ross moved to Tallahassee where he is now a sole practitioner of law. The point is that Florida Hometown Democracy did not spring up from nowhere: this movement was grounded in the manifest failures of growth management in South Florida. Right here. It grew up right here in the Chambers of the Miami-Dade County Commission and the City of Miami, where the pleas of citizens from the podium are routinely ignored by elected officials on cell phones with lobbyists or snoozing or joking with each other or showing their disrespect for ordinary people and ordinary taxpayers taking entire days to attend land use hearings where, for the most part, they are ignored.

So far as I am concerned, Florida Hometown Democracy is for George Kuntz of Key Colony Beach, who attended each and every land use hearing in the Keys for a decade and testified against land use changes, who fought and scrapped until his last days. Amendment 4 is for Grace Maniello of Big Pine Key, a minority voice on the Monroe County Planning Commission, who endured the taunts and ridicule and isolation in a place where platted lots had been used, for generations, as payola. Grace and Fred and Freddy: the whole family fought the good fight and they are gone, too. Amendment 4 is for friends who never gave up on the bonefish, the bay in front of Islamorada stretching to Flamingo, and the sweet virtues of place that can't be recovered once they are lost. Amendment 4 has similar backstories across the state of Florida. It is from people who love this state. It is an heroic effort by a group of dedicated volunteers around the state of Florida who have made sacrifices-- in the case of Lesley Blackner, who put in nearly $1 million of her own money-- to put this measure on the November ballot: the fact of Amendment 4 is for each and every citizen who tried to protect a river, or stream, or wetland or the character of a neighborhood and cohesion of a community. It is for every person who summoned the courage to speak in public in a forum where other more practiced, monied voices rose up to bitch them out. They have the money and the influence, and right now, two weeks before the election, they are getting ready to spend the $10 to $15 million they have raised to defeat Amendment 4.

While Lesley Blackner has been the visible, public champion of this movement; Ross Burnaman helped forge the measures passage through and over hurdles and roadblocks thrown up in its way, including the third political party in America: The US Chamber of Commerce. Twenty five years ago, when Florida Keys public officials were making the same weak arguments in favor of sacrificing quality of life and natural resources to expanded tax base, that could only happen by weakening environmental protection rules and regulations, Ross Burnaman was tough as nails. Today, special interests make the same arguments, and Ross Burnaman is still tough as nails.

I hope Amendment 4 passes. The public is in an uproar in the grinding economic collapse; the worst since the Depression. Hearing Amendment 4's opponents darkly warn of lost jobs and catastrophe if the measure passes is like watching people clinging to the hull of a capsized ship blaming the water. The scent of extremism is heavy in the air. Amendment 4 will pass, if voters on November 2nd read the ballot issue all the way through.

Hope ... by gimleteye

Is it too much to hope that the looniness spilling out of Delaware politics and the sheer nonsense of Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell could change the minds of Tea Party supporters in Florida? Perhaps. Fred Grimm reports today that Congressional candidate David Rivera has holes in his resume so deep that no one can possibly know who he is. "His campaign explained it has redacted names of associates who might vouch for the mystery man "as well as information that may be considered classified or sensitive by the U.S. government.'' How can this kind of nonsense qualify a candidate for Congress? (Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/13/1872542/maybe-riveras-past-is-really-top.html#ixzz12KkdjkuP) Then there is GOP candidate for governor Rick Scot who came within a hair breadth of being indicted in the largest health insurance scam in US history. It turns out Scott won't meet with newspaper editorial boards. What is Scott hiding: a history that he was working with David Rivera in black ops as part of a government operation to bankrupt the middle class? Then there is Tea Party candidate for US Senate Marco Rubio, relying on Karl Rove and Jeb Bush's ceremonial sword having done, exactly what, and supports, exactly what? The Arizona Immigration Law. Well at least the Tea Party is clear on this point: no more immigrants, just poor white men poking around in the dirt for where they lost their minds.

Florida Election Has Me High...On Anxiety. By Geniusofdespair

Every once in awhile I check in to see how I am feeling. Yep. I have feelings. Today when I did my review I realized that I am high on anxiety. It's the election. It has me jumpy and mean, I could trick an old lady out of her absentee ballot. I watch the polls constantly this close to an election. The polls are not giving me any relief because they have been bad for my team. I tried to read to take my mind off the election. I downloaded A. Michael Froomkin's "Anonymity in the Balance" but was having a hard time focusing, 44 pages. That is a lot to read on screen. I did find one quote I liked while skimming through it:

Anonymity basks in the glow of association with good causes.

Back to the election. I am pretty sure that Alex Sink will pull it off, only because Rick Scott is SOOOO bad. I also just saw Sink's rockin' two minute ad - it will destroy Scott. I predict she will win. In contrast, the Senate race is in the crapper. Crist is picking up endorsements, he just got Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the St. Pete Times. Unless Rubio gets arrested or Bill Clinton strong arms Meek to drop out next week, Rubio will slide in. If Meek was out of the race Crist and Rubio would tie according to Public Policy Polling. Miracles can happen. It makes me crazy to think that I might have to write 'Senator Rubio' someday. Pathetic. On another front, the developers and the chamber of communists are throwing so much money against Amendment 4, I worry about its passage. The only good thing is, they are ignoring Amendments 5 and 6 so I think they will pass. So my days till the election are spent web-surfing for good news, praying for my team and trying to stay medicated.

Charlie Crist: the candidate for US Senate who did something exceptional ... by gimleteye

Put it down, etched in granite: Florida Governor Charlie Crist took land out of sugar production to help save the Everglades. There is one exceptional fact to this achievement, memorialized on Oct. 12. Crist engineered this critical initiative for the environment despite the opposition of Florida Crystals or New Hope Sugar, owned by the Fanjul family. Nothing like that has ever happened before in Florida. Why this political event deserves its own monument is a story illuminating the dark politics engulfing the nation.

Sugar is grown on about 700,000 acres around the southern rim of Lake Okeechobee. Originally, it was all Everglades. Any hope of realizing the nation's keystone environmental initiative, restoring the remnant Everglades, depends on hugely expensive application of technology and science to vast new cleansing marshes built from lands owned by sugar billionaires. Although there are small sugar farmers who are politically active, it is really the Big Two who provide the energy and funding for the industry in the halls of power: US Sugar and the Fanjuils. The Fanjuls, who own strategically located lands, are US Sugar's only similarly scaled competitor. That said, the nation's biggest sugar producers are 99 percent of the time on the same side of the political equation, advocating rabidly anti-environmental regulation policies whether of the state or federal government.

The water supply requirements of sugar production-- flood control in the wet season and supply during the dry-- is out of sync with the natural Everglades. Keeping it that way enhances sugar profits. At the same time, fertilizer runoff and chemicals released by the exposure of wetlands to extensive drying have massively polluted the Everglades. These factors converted the Everglades from a multi-billion dollar economic engine including fisheries, estuaries,and natural habitats valued by the nation into a sputtering, flickering shadow. At the same time, Big Sugar has used its profits to become the main obstacle to restoring America's River of Grass.

Yesterdays' accomplishment was historic, albeit on a much reduced scale from Gov. Crist's original plan; 187,000 acres at a cost of $1.75 billion. Crist appointees at the water management district-- mostly Republicans -- saw the moment through, despite the chaos organized by the Fanjuls. For doing the right thing-- Crist's own words, why he conceived the deal-- GOP insiders hounded him from the party. Fanjul interests were early and big contributors to Marco Rubio; the Republican candidate for US Senate. In July, Pepe Fanjul hosted a fundraiser for Rubio, at $42,500 per ticket.

For many decades, the public purpose of converting sugar lands from production in order to remove pollution has been like trench warfare. Fanjul lobbyists, lawyers and experts have been armed to the gills; all pointing in one direction; delay, delay and more delay. Even after selling property to government, they pushed to the final dotted 'i', working behind the scenes to hobble environmental agencies from within, whether threatening funding cut, cajoling, intimidating and applying pressure at any point of weakness.

Lately, in the case of the US Sugar purchase, regular meetings of the water district governing board have been disrupted by anti-tax zealots, funded by the Fanjuls, dressed as the Tea Party with only the vaguest idea who their talking points benefit. As well documented in radical publications like the Wall Street Journal, the wealth of the sugar billionaires exists as a function of corporate welfare; import quotas, price supports, and other subsidies that occur through a malleable Congress and the Florida legislature. The Fanjuls protect their prerogatives with campaign contributions. For example, in the US Senate race one Fanjul patriarch supports Kendrick Meek and the other, Marco Rubio. As noted on this blog yesterday, Pepe Fanjul was recently in national news for employing as executive assistant for thirty five years a woman married to a prominent leader of KKK and of the American Nazi Party.

The Fanjuls say the Crist deal is a collossal waste of taxpayer money. In the mainstream press, they get away with it. But in the scientific community, there is unanimous agreement that the highest priority for the Everglades is to add vast acres of new treatment marshes. These cleansing areas, funded by the public, will clean sugar's pollution because the Florida legislature will not make the polluters pay. As to waste of taxpayer money, that has the Tea Partier's charging to District meetings with their hair on fire, no one has the guts to explain to them how federal tax policy embedded in the Farm Bill is what keeps the billions flowing into the pockets of special interests to commandeer our representative democracy.

Unfortunately for the Everglades and for the greater economic interests of Florida, the Fanjuls own centrally located property that need to be incorporated for water cleansing and storage to make use of the opportunities opened by Gov. Crist for the Everglades. This is not idle chatter, but it is the reason insiders have been silent on the influence of the Fanjuls. In other words, unless the Fanjuls fundamentally change their strategy-- squeezing the last dime from their private property and selling only when the peat soil is too exhausted to produce--, Everglades restoration will remain hostage.

Still, in helping to remove sugar production from the Everglades Agricultural Area-- whether or not it was the best deal-- Charlie Crist did something that no national politician, either Democrat or Republican has ever done. He did the right thing for Florida and for the Everglades. Risking the anger of the Fanjuls has been like touching the third rail of Florida politics: Bill Clinton who is Alfie Fanjul's golfing partner, wouldn't do it. Nor would Bob Graham whose willingness to do the Fanjuls' bidding opened a gaping hole in plans to restore the Everglades. Nor Bill Nelson who sticks to bland Everglades talking points neat as Mitch McConnell's hairstyle. It is still the Fanjuls who are tinkering with dark science. In the press you will read their spin: how the US Sugar purchase takes away from restoration. The true story is how the Fanjuls funded, in the early 1990's, Wise Use activists to suppress environmental regulations, tying straight to today's Tea Party, how the Fanjuls funded African American churches and leaders to oppose the polluter pay referendums and scared off President Clinton in the mid 1990's, how Governor Jeb Bush connived, at urging of Fanjul funded lobbyists, to change water quality standards for the Everglades in 2003 now judged to be violations of federal law, happily using the occasion to 'divide and conquer' Florida's environmental community. These are all chapters along the way to Gov. Charlie Crist's acquisition of US Sugar lands.

Does the Tea Party really want to put badges of honor on polluters? Charlie Crist for US Senate.

Plagiarized Cooking Recipes. By Geniusofdespair

I decided I would write a cookbook post by post. However, I don't cook so my recipes will be plagiarized. Much better for me.

I am starting easy: Chicken Pot Pie

Pick and clean fix chickens, take out their innards and wash the birds while whole, then joint the birds, salt and pepper the pieces and innards. Roll one inch thick pastry and cover a deep dish, and double at the rim or edge of the dish, put a layer of chickens and a layer of thin slices of butter, till the chickens and one and a half pound of butter are expended (what is that, 6 sticks?), cover with a thick pastry dough. Bake one and a half hours. Or if your oven be poor, parboil the chickens with half a pound of butter, and put the pieces with the remaining one pound of butter, and half the gravy into the pastry, and while boiling, thicken the refidue cruft, and add the gravy. What???

Hmmm. I wanted a cookbook I could copy without getting hit with a lawsuit, but maybe Amelia Simmons', American Cookery is a little out-dated - 1796. It is also a bit heavy on the butter. Don't worry though, there are other recipes from this 200+ year old cookbook, like how to drefs a calve's head.

Michele Bachmann called Marco Rubio a Tea Bag (or was it tea party) Candidate. By Geniusofdespair

This morning on the Today show Michele Bachmann named Rubio as a Tea Party candidate, thought I would just mention it because it takes one to know one.

Debate in District 8: Eugene Flinn and Lynda Bell. By Geniusofdespair

Here is a link to a debate between a subdued Mayor Eugene Flinn and Palin-perky-fast-talking Lynda Bell, moderated by Helen Ferre.

Bell flat out rejects Amendment 4 - spewing the same old talking points of the developers and the Chamber folks. Ick to that. She of all people, at the epicenter of "developers gone wild" for 6 years as both a councilwoman and mayor in Homestead, SHE should know better. Even if she wants to take credit for an ineffective, short-lived moratorium - notwithstanding that she was in Homestead government for 6 years during the boom that busted Homestead -- You would think that at least watching the Batemen regime, helplessly as a regular citizen, should have taught her something about the value of Amendment 4. No. She is still clueless on a long term strategy on growth management. Homestead government is incapable of good planning or good government, it has been operating like a giant, festering, pus-filled boil for the past 17 years. Lynda Bell still thinks you can swab at it. Amendment 4 would lance it once and for all.

Flinn, in contrast, says he will probably vote for Amendment 4, but he says it is not important whether he supports it or not. He says there is nothing wrong with citizen involvement and he supports that and always has in Palmetto Bay...remember also that Palmetto Bay government isn't a glob of festering pus, it is functional. Let's face facts, no government official is particularly thrilled with Amendment 4, the amendment is proof that we lack faith in them. That must hurt the feelings of some of the ethical, growth management conscious public servants.

On budget Flinn says he would start at the top with his cuts and he suggests that they have to see what they can afford, saying there are a lot of things that are nice to have that you can't afford, but there are a lot of things you must have that should be budgeted. He is right on suggesting we need charter initiatives for the county. Flinn supports some at large Commission seats and he supports term limits for Commissioners. Bell totally avoided answering this question. At the end Lynda chided Flinn because Palmetto Bay was spending about ten million dollars to build a city hall to house city staff and it was there the broadcast ended. No rebuttal, so here is mine. Actually, the city hall is the anchor of a Palmetto Bay revitalization project. It is slated to be a Village Center with amenities for all citizens -- not just city staff. On the one hand Lynda Bell talks about jobs and supporting smart growth, yet she denounces a project that is on the US 1 transportation corridor, slated to be an innovative transportation hub for South Dade workers. Incidentally, the project doesn't sprawl the Village of Palmetto Bay, it draws people to the center. (See Flinn's Village Center explanation below.)

Finally, a reminder, don't vote for the anti gay rights, anti stem cell research use, anti assisted suicide, anti choice candidate please..hint, that is the one who looks more like Anita Bryant.

More on Marco Rubio's silence, Fanjul's executive assistant tied to the American Nazi Party ... by gimleteye

To read the report in The New York Post, Chloe Black worked for thirty five years as the executive assistant to Pepe Fanjul, one of the GOP's top campaign contributors from Florida and a key supporter of US Senate hopeful Marco Rubio, before Fanjul found out that she is married to "Don Black, a former KKK grand wizard and member of the American Nazi Party. He (Black) now runs white-supremacist Web site StormFront.org." Rubio should return the contributions from Pepe Fanjul.

Rubio, supported by The Tea Party, represents the resurgent wing of the Republican Party led by Bush family interests. Kendrick Meek, the Democratic candidate for US Senate, is supported by Pepe's brother, Alfie, who takes the Democratic side of business. I'm guessing that if it was Alfie whose executive assistant was married to a former KKK grand wizard and white supremacist, Meek-- who is African American-- would have said something about the six degrees of separation from former KKK David Duke and Don Black's, "Did you know the civil rights movement was Jewish controlled?" But Marco Rubio, so far, is silent.

Here is what is troubling. Most Floridians who are immigrants don't realize that Senate hopeful Marco Rubio supports the Arizona immigration law that would empower police powers at a time when civil society in the United States is groaning at the seams. To Florida voters, Rubio is an earnest, fresh face and they have no clue what he did, or does, or who he owes.

It is widely known that the sugar industry, from which the Fanjul fortune is based, is entirely dependent on corporate welfare in the form of price supports and import barriers, the suppression of pollution regulations, and federal farm policies established by Congress. How many Florida voters, are aware? Ask Rubio or Meek, or any politician in Florida: the weight of the Fanjuls in domestic politics is as transparent as the Koch brothers, Charles and David, in the world of conservative foundations. On a related note, the great offense that Governor Charlie Crist committed, to drive him from the Republican Party in Florida, was supporting the land deal to buy the Fanjul's chief competitor-- US Sugar Corporation-- without consulting them. Even the Fanjuls know that returning sugar fields to the purpose of helping to restore water quality in the Everglades, badly damaged by their toxic runoff is what stands in the way of progress.

So here you have an executive assistant to the Fanjul patriarch who is Republican, who has no idea--none apparently until yesterday-- that after thirty five years of employment, his executive assistant has a direct line into the American Nazi Party. So when Pepe Fanjul is calling on members of Congress or Republican media consultants or Karl Rove to advance prospects for the Farm Bill or how to thwart the EPA, those calls are being placed through an executive assistant whose husband is tied to the American Nazi Party.

Last but not least, it escapes no one's attention that corporate contributions to GOP causes this election cycle are verging on 7-1 against Democrats. This is the result of the US Supreme Court on Citizens United, springing the barn doors wide open to unlimited contributions from corporations. When in March 2009, Alfie Fanjul hosted a fundraiser for Kendrick Meek at his home in Coral Gables, Florida, the top ticket price was $10,000. This past July, the Pepe Fanjul event for Marco Rubio,reported in The Palm Beach Daily News last July, was $42,500 per person with the caveat this is paying cash, "the organizers only accepted bills with pictures of Republican presidents."

If American voters are dazed and confused by the economic crisis, stirred to passion and the wages of fear, they are also largely ignorant how the levers of power are tightening down against freedom and liberty in favor of corporations. If I were Glen Beck, I'd pay more attention to Pepe Fanjul than George Soros and why Marco Rubio should return the dough.

Palmetto Bay Village Hall. By Geniusofdespair

I asked Mayor Finn about the Village Hall that Lynda Bell was dissing during a debate (see post 2 above). This was his reply:

Palmetto Bay Village hall will cost out at $10.8 million. This is the total costs to open the door and operate, not just construction. Again, this is the move in ready to operate price. The village has received different grants for construction such as $1.24 million. Other incentives such as the greening elements, etc., have gone in to reduce the costs.

The economy has made this an important employment project as well as costs have dropped both in time and materials, allowing this project to be completed for the stated price. People are working and at a time when the costs are reduced for area residents.

The village hall will serve over 25,000 village residents and also serve as the area’s emergency operations center. It is being built to withstand a Cat 5 storm. Phase II of the property will see a 500 space parking garage out of which 400 spaces will be dedicated to the busway to encourage use of mass transit (as well as at least 2 electric car recharge stations). These parking spaces will also be available for any spill over parking for the neighboring Palmetto Bay Park events.

The village hall will house the largest photocell array in Miami-Dade County – over 10K square feet. 60% of the building’s power will come from the solar array. There is also a 60K cistern. 40K for the irrigation and a separate 20K where water will be tinted and treated for use in toilet flushing and other non-potable uses. All heated water will be heated through solar heating.

This is Palmetto Bay’s second green certified building (Palmeto Bay was the first to construct a municipal green certified building.)

The Palmetto Bay village Hall was originally set to be Gold LEED certified. It is now tracking to be Platinum LEED certied. The yearly cost saving area will exceed $50K.

See press release on impact of village hall to area and more on Village Hall.
Info on FT & I district.

Marco Rubio's billionaire supporter won't fire executive assistant with KKK link ... by gimleteye

US Senate candidate Marco Rubio's top campaign fundraiser, billionaire sugar baron Pepe Fanjul, employs an executive assistant married first to a leader of the Klu Klux Klan and now to the founder of a white-supremecist group according to a weekend report in the New York Post. Fanjul, in July, hosted a Palm Beach fundraiser for Rubio, with a ticket price of $90,400 per couple. The Palm Beach paper reported, "If paying cash, the organizers will accept only bills with pictures of Republican presidents." Rubio should return the money raised by Fanjul. Click read more, for the full story.


New York Post
Posted: 11:05 PM, October 8, 2010

Billionaire sugar baron Pepe Fanjul is refusing to fire his executive assistant, Chloe Black, despite her being married first to a former Ku Klux Klan leader, and then to the founder of a white-supremacist group.

Chloe, who has worked for the Cuban-born owner of Florida Crystals for more than 35 years, is the ex-wife of former KKK leader David Duke, and the current wife of Don Black, a former KKK grand wizard and member of the American Nazi Party. He now runs white-supremacist Web site StormFront.org.

Chloe's role with the powerful Palm Beach-based Fanjul family, which Page Six reported on in 2008, caused an outcry from civil-rights groups. Ironically, her duties include working with Fanjul's wife, Emilia, on The Glades, a Florida charter school that aims to help poor black and Latino children.

Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, told us: "Chloe Black is married to one of the most active white supremacists. We do not understand why she has not been fired by the Fanjul family. Her connections to white supremacists run so deep that it seems unthinkable that she work for a school for minority children." Chloe couldn't be reached for comment.

Reps for Fanjul yesterday confirmed Black was still working for the firm.

Paul Wilmot, spokesman for Florida Crystals, said: "While we may not agree with someone's politics, we wouldn't terminate them for that. We are a minority-owned company and enjoy a wide range of ethnic, racial, religious, lifestyle and political diversity among our thousands of employees.

"We will not discriminate against anybody, and that has been our policy forever. The rhetoric and beliefs of racial and other hate groups are abhorrent to Florida Crystals."

A source added, "This is business, it is not personal. Chloe had been with the company for 35 years when they found out about it, and she has always been a good employee. They don't agree with it, but they are not going to fire her."

Review: Gallery Night in Wynwood ... by gimleteye

I remember when going on an art walk in Wynwood meant one stop; Fred Snitzer’s gallery. It wasn't so long ago. That’s a far cry from what occurs, once a month, on gallery night —the second Saturday in Wynwood.

I hadn’t been in a while. Last Saturday night Wynwood was packed. Yes it feels a little like Kendall has descended en masse, but for the most part the crowds are magnificent compared to the desert gulch downtown Miami is, at night.

In the 1990's, there was still hope for an arts district on the Miami River, but greedy landowners made sure that never happened. They were waiting for the miracle bubble to come. It did come and it did burst. They laughed off the idea that river property could serve a public good and also act as an engine of economic growth.

Wynwood isn’t the Miami River. But it is where the energy of the city manifests one night a month. And that is a very good thing.

To the galleries that popped up everywhere, add pop-up food vendors and street music. This is how civic energy can work and should. That it is happening in Miami despite city and business leaders is par for the course. The energy reminds me how funky Lincoln Road used to be, before the major chains took root.

It is common sense that Miami should have a place where grass roots arts are encouraged, audiences given an opportunity to participate, and where the Chamber of Commerce stands down. Why? Because growth and economic development follows of the arts, its makers, and patrons who eventually define what is “cool” and desirable (before whatever “it” is, is turned into a commodity.) This is not rocket science: it has been proven out in American cities from Providence, to San Antonio, to Louisville.

Locals should make the Wynwood night bi-monthly; the city should put enough incentives for little pop-up businesses like the food vendors to compete. My only knock on gallery walk night, please—don’t let the volume of street DJ’s overpower the enjoyment of everything else. That's just stupid.

Hiaasen and Eye on Miami and Amendment 4 ... by gimleteye

In his editorial on Sunday, Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen chips in from the 17th fairway, an eagle. I don't begrudge Carl playing his regular golf far from the congestion and over-developed Miami-Dade. We're still here, scouring the weeds for lost golf balls. We're a different breed, the duffers who stayed behind; fighting zoning codes and raking through the hot coals of master plan changes for some piece of evidence that would hold up in court, to protect our quality of life, our schools, our traffic, our water quality and environment.

So many people chose otherwise: to leave Miami-Dade County because they were just plain fed up with fighting and local government held hostage by big campaign contributors and arrogance at County Hall. The landscape in South Dade and West Kendall bears the perfect stamp of what went wrong; the West Dade wellfield, the waters of Biscayne Bay, Krome Avenue. It is a long list but it is Sunday and there are other things I want to do, today.

The only question for Amendment 4, the ballot measure on November 2-- the sole chance in our lifetimes to change the corrupt relationship between local public officials and land use decisions-- is whether enough voters will take the time to actually read the ballot measure that would return the decision for changes to land use plans to local, popular vote. If enough voters read the ballot referendum, that is a question, and if enough voters are angry, and they are, then Amendment 4 will pass by the supermajority its opponents pushed through as a ballot referendum a few years ago, for the single purpose of defeating Amendment 4. This is no exaggueration: the Growth Machine and Engineering Cartel have been whipped to a frenzy by the chance that voters could actually change the locks on the barn door. The entire rationale for big developers funding local elected officials campaigns disappears, if now the final arbiter of their mega-plans is the public, and not Little Joe, Dorrin Rolle, Dim Bruno or VNS. The fear campaign against Florida Hometown Democracy is about to be unleashed. Read Carl Hiaasen, below. And thank you, Carl, for being a devoted reader of Eye On Miami.
Posted on Sat, Oct. 09, 2010
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/09/v-print/1865470/running-scared-over-amendment.html
Running scared over Amendment 4

By Carl Hiaasen
chiaasen@MiamiHerald.com

Major home builders are uncorking a bombastic media blitz to scare Floridians away from voting yes to Amendment 4.
The same people who helped ignite the housing crash and mortgage meltdown are absolutely terrified of giving citizens actual control over growth in their own communities.

The so-called Hometown Democracy Amendment would require local voters to approve any significant changes to a county or city ``comprehensive land-use plan,'' the map by which municipalities evolve.

If the measure passes -- and it needs the support of 60 percent of voters -- no massive housing subdivision or commercial development could be built without the project first appearing on a ballot.

It's not exactly a radical concept, but the opposing special interests will do just about anything to kill it.

They're scared because they know Floridians are fed up with lousy planning and overbuilding, and the high taxes that always result.

They're scared because they know Floridians are sick of watching elected officials cave in again and again to developers, making a farce of land-use regulations.

But mostly they're scared because, if passed, Amendment 4 has the potential to disrupt the influence-peddling and outright corruption that's made it so easy to subvert the will of the public.

As things stand now, development interests can thwart opposition to projects by simply buying off the politicians whose votes are needed to make it happen.

Typically that's achieved by hiring connected lobbyists, who then approach a receptive county commissioner or city council member. In many cases, the lobbyist has raised money for the officeholder's election campaign, so a favor is perceived to be owed.

And a threat implied, too: If you don't line up behind the project, don't expect any donations for your next campaign.

Occasionally, if the elected official is exceptionally greedy and dim-witted, a cash bribe or some other illicit benefit is arranged.

Public hearings are often a formality, a minor road bump. Plenty of earnest folks show up to question the impact of a proposed subdivision or shopping mall upon their neighborhoods and lives, and the politicians pretend to listen.

By that point, though, the deal is already sealed, the necessary majority of votes secured.

This cynical charade has been going on since the beginning of statehood. It's the reason so many Florida cities look like they were planned by chimpanzees on LSD.

It's also the reason we now have an estimated 300,000 homes and condos sitting vacant statewide, while leading the nation in foreclosures as well as mortgage fraud. The term ``growth management'' is a joke.

Amendment 4 isn't a perfect solution. Much will depend on how the language is interpreted -- for instance, determining how large a project must be before it goes to a vote.

Many thoughtful people, including some professional planners, fear the amendment would generate an endless spate of elections in fast-growing counties. They're also worried that deep-pocketed developers will be able to sway the outcomes with slick advertising campaigns.

Another issue is the wisdom of holding a countywide or citywide referendum on a building project that might affect only one neighborhood. At the very least, the amendment is bound to spawn lawsuits until the courts clarify its reach.

Despite such concerns, it's hard to imagine a system for managing growth that could possibly be more dishonest, or deaf to the public interest, than what we have now.

Nobody with half a brain believes that development pays for itself. Study after study shows that residents are the ones who pay big-time for sprawl, which is why taxes are so brutal in Florida's most densely populated counties.

So is the cost of living. Clogged highways, overcrowded schools and jails, water shortages -- we pay for all of it.

Opponents claim that Amendment 4 will actually raise taxes, one of many straight-faced lies that will saturate the airwaves between now and election day. This is well-financed desperation.

While the amendment's supporters have raised only about $2.4 million, the opposition had a war chest of $12 million by mid-summer.

The biggest donor is the Florida Association of Realtors -- what a shocker -- followed by some of the biggest home builders on Wall Street.

Here's the killer: Many of the companies bankrolling the ad campaign against Amendment 4 are recipients of a congressional bailout, in the form of humongous tax refunds earlier this year.

According to an industry magazine (Headline: ``Builders Cash in on Tax Refunds''), Lennar Homes has already taken $251 million in taxpayer-funded relief.

Yet somehow the firm scrounged up $367,000 to fight the Florida Hometown Democracy movement.

Pulte Homes accepted $800 million in federal bailout refunds while kicking in $567,000 to a political action committee opposed to Amendment 4.

So, when you see all those dire-sounding, fright-filled TV commercials, remember whose paying for them. You are.

These guys are using your money to keep your voice, and your vote, out of the neighborhood planning process. Think about that when you're standing in the voting booth on Nov 2.

Do the thing they dread the most: Read Amendment 4 and decide for yourself.

Carl Hiaasen on Florida Amendent 4. By Geniusofdespair

Writer, Carl Hiaasen loves Florida, and he also loves Amendment 4.

Amendment 4: The End of Life As We Know It...in Florida. By Geniusofdespair

THIS COLUMN FROM THE ST. PETE TIMES SAYS IT ALL:

If you vote for Amendment 4, you'll turn purple and get fat (and other exaggerations)

By Howard Troxler, Times Columnist
In Print: Sunday, October 3, 2010

If this crazy constitutional amendment passes, it will destroy Florida. Florida will go out of business. We will lose our jobs. Other states will beat us.

Yep, those were the dire warnings that we heard from Florida's business leaders …Back in 2004, when they tried to scare voters into rejecting a $1 increase in Florida's minimum wage.

This year, we're hearing the same kind of thing about Amendment 4 on the November ballot, the "Hometown Democracy" idea.

Amendment 4 simply says that local voters in Florida should have the final say over some growth decisions. But to hear Florida's business community tell it, such an idea would be the end of the world. The state might well sink into the ocean.

Phooey. Nuts. Hockey pucks.

If Hometown Democracy passes, here is what will not happen:

People will not quit building things in Florida. And we will not have to hold 8,000 local elections a year. Or a million. Or whatever it is they're claiming.

Remember that Amendment 4 requires an election only for changes to a city or county's "comprehensive plan," which is the basic map for how a community should look — industrial here, commercial there, and so forth.

So if Amendment 4 passes, the first thing that will happen is:

Many developers will tweak their proposals to avoid the need for plan amendments and elections. And this is exactly the idea. They can still build — consistent with the plan.

The way it works now, any time anybody wants to build something, they just go to the City Council or County Commission and get the plan changed.

The plan is not driving our growth — we're just changing our plan to fit the growth.

The second thing to consider if Amendment 4 passes is that:

Local governments will still screen proposed developments, and decide for themselves how many elections to hold. This is an often-overlooked aspect of Amendment 4. We are not turning every proposal into a willy-nilly election popularity contest. The experts will still review these things. The local government can still reject them. What we're adding is a voter veto over their final approval.

Third, if Amendment 4 passes:

Florida communities will prove perfectly capable of making these decisions in local elections.

In fact, I think we will adapt to the new system rather quickly, and that it will even work to developers' advantage at times.

Winning public passage will become a routine part of the process of winning approval for big projects — a relative drop in the bucket compared to the existing costs, and the already lengthy process, of winning regulatory approval.

In some cases, it even will be better for developers to make their case to an entire community, rather than fighting one particularly noisy or influential neighborhood.

Wouldn't all of us in, say, Hillsborough or Pinellas County be better off with Project X? Wouldn't our entire city of (insert name here) benefit from this new (mall, restaurant, theater)?

Listen.

If you're agin' it, you're agin' it.

If you think this is a bad idea and that your local County Commission or City Council should make these decisions, and that if we don't like what they do, then we just should not re-elect them, that is a perfectly fine opinion.

But if you are on the fence about Amendment 4, and are wondering whether all this doom and gloom and predictions of the end of the world are true — I think they are a bunch of hooey, and that the opponents so ridiculously overstate it that they hurt their own cause.