It is inevitable that horizontal national news/blogs would send roots down to local audiences. Now we have a test case: the Miami edition of the Huffington Post.
So far Huffington hasn't put much money into the site, but its vertical ambition is intriguing. I doubt contributors are paid, but the local HuffPost formula could be an evolutionary jump. Seeding the site with national HuffPost stories (coded to Miami and Florida interest) and mashing them up with local derived stories with the HuffPost feel is an interesting concept.
I have no insight how the clash for viewers/audiences will work out for advertisers. (Jeesh, we have been doing this for years nourished only by true grit.) The Miami New Times, purely local, has its own sweet spot; the New Times jumps in with daily additions to its website, augmenting the weekly paper.
I doubt the HuffPost Miami is a threat to the New Times franchise. The Herald, on the other hand, is another matter. The paper is a jumble and sometimes seems to be published with a staff of three. It has given up on reporting local news with any kind of depth or consistency.
With a little investment, Huffington might find the keys to the web-based lock on profit from news. Blogs like ours will just have to sell to the highest bidder. And we'll post a link to the HuffPost site when it cross links with ours.
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Jim Mullin Has the Recipe for Success. By Geniusofdeapair
You might ask why would anyone try to sift through the ads. Well, I do because there is good local material inside. Somehow I missed a big story and so did the Miami Herald. Former Scam Artist/Mayor Joe Celestin is in charge of the cleanup at Biscayne Landing. OMG could anything be more stupid? He is making $19,500 a month supervising the decontamination of the site. He says: By next year we will have a clean site. Celestin always had a penchant for hyperbole/bullshit (I wish I could find the State Attorney's office close-out memo on him):
Attorney (John) Dellagloria scoffs at the notion that Biscayne Landing can be fully remediated in less than a year, as claimed by Celestin. “The site will be monitored for the next 20 years. There is no such thing as ‘the site will be cleaned up in nine months,’” says Dellagloria, a former North Miami city attorney. “The site is today as it will be tomorrow. Anyone who alleges or believes that there will be a brand-new world nine months from now has no grasp of the actual situation.”How did Joe Celestin get put in charge of anything in North Miami after his tenure as Mayor there? I didn't know about this idiocy until I picked up Mullin's paper. (Note to Jim: The ads aren't so bad. I am always amused by the photos that Denise Rubin places in her ads of herself. Note to readers: I call Biscayne Landing Munisport and have 15 posts on it.)
Catch Norman Braman (and Others) Saturday for a Gambling Discussion. By Geniusofdespair
Gambling with Miami's Future? A Community Dialog
WHAT: A two-hour discussion - conversation with questions from the audience.
WHERE: The Light Box Theater at Goldman Warehouse, 404 NW 26 Street (2 blocks west of Wynwood Walls on 26th Street)
WHEN: Saturday, December 10, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM
I will be going most of all, because it is free. All of the other discussions are put on by the chamber and you have to pay. So be sure to catch this one, it is not Chamber of Commerce crap. Another reason I am going is because I can have lunch at Joey's and go look at the Wynwood Walls.
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
The Newt Gingrich Effect ... by gimleteye
The sad parade of the GOP towards nomination of a presidential candidate will be a spectacle for future students of political and cultural history. Newt Gingrich is a sometimes professor who never lacks for an interpretation. There is more irony in Gingrich's fifteen minutes of fame. The former House Speaker derives from the line of slash-and-burn GOP operatives; stretching from the young Roy Cohn, Richard Nixon, Lee Atwater, and its contemporary version, Karl Rove. Rove, Bush consigliere, is hovering in the background through SuperPAC's priming to unleash a tsunami of corporate campaign cash that will dwarf whatever the Democrats can summon for 2012.
Gingrich is the anti-Bush. The tension between Jeb and Gingrich, as party thinkers, is palpable whenever the two appear on the same stage. Rove has recently appeared on the GOP radar, pointing out Gingrich's shortcomings. Talk about cold wars.
For outsiders who yearn for a moderate and competitive GOP, there has been plenty of gnashing of teeth about the Grover Norquist effect and anti-tax pledges by GOP members of Congress; pushing Republicans into an extremist corner from which none have the courage to emerge. Gingrich played his role in pushing the party rightward.
Democrats remember Gingrich for engineering the 1994 mid-term election coup that delivered Congress to Republicans. But Republicans recall Gingrich for his arrogance and conviction that no one-- no one-- was smarter. (Although standing by Donald Trump as a form of reinforcement doesn't look to me like the smartest move.)
It would be a remarkable turn of the political screw if the Bush strain of the GOP had to support either Romney or Gingrich. Who is the bigger nightmare? Gingrich.
Gingrich is the anti-Bush. The tension between Jeb and Gingrich, as party thinkers, is palpable whenever the two appear on the same stage. Rove has recently appeared on the GOP radar, pointing out Gingrich's shortcomings. Talk about cold wars.
For outsiders who yearn for a moderate and competitive GOP, there has been plenty of gnashing of teeth about the Grover Norquist effect and anti-tax pledges by GOP members of Congress; pushing Republicans into an extremist corner from which none have the courage to emerge. Gingrich played his role in pushing the party rightward.
Democrats remember Gingrich for engineering the 1994 mid-term election coup that delivered Congress to Republicans. But Republicans recall Gingrich for his arrogance and conviction that no one-- no one-- was smarter. (Although standing by Donald Trump as a form of reinforcement doesn't look to me like the smartest move.)
It would be a remarkable turn of the political screw if the Bush strain of the GOP had to support either Romney or Gingrich. Who is the bigger nightmare? Gingrich.
Demographics for Redistricting in the County. By Geniusofdespair
Alert: Lynda Bell gets a big swath of land added to her district OUTSIDE the urban development boundary (see map below).
An ordinance creating new County Commission Districts is on the agenda today. Doesn't look good to me for some minority districts. Monestime and Jordan are okay. Edmonson might find it tough with 39% Hispanic. Bell will also find it harder with only 26.6% White unless some Hispanics are not registered to vote. Goodbye Bell. Moss could lose in his district, it is only 28.2% Black. Suarez had better be listening to his White constituents as he has a pretty high percentage 32.8%. I expect this meeting will be worth watching. The public hearing is December 19th, fitting right in with my holiday schedule. See the story in the Miami Herald -- Pinecrest gets taken from Bell and goes to Suarez.
The Herald has a map of the proposed districts.
Population Changes:
An ordinance creating new County Commission Districts is on the agenda today. Doesn't look good to me for some minority districts. Monestime and Jordan are okay. Edmonson might find it tough with 39% Hispanic. Bell will also find it harder with only 26.6% White unless some Hispanics are not registered to vote. Goodbye Bell. Moss could lose in his district, it is only 28.2% Black. Suarez had better be listening to his White constituents as he has a pretty high percentage 32.8%. I expect this meeting will be worth watching. The public hearing is December 19th, fitting right in with my holiday schedule. See the story in the Miami Herald -- Pinecrest gets taken from Bell and goes to Suarez.
The Herald has a map of the proposed districts.
Population Changes:
District 1, Barbara Jordan 2000 = 168,488. 2010 = 175,046
District 2, Jean Monestime 2000 = 169,506. 2010 = 166,849
District 3, Audrey Edmonson 2000 = 169,241. 2010 = 173,531
District 4, Sally Heyman 2000 = 169,912. 2010 = 187,794
District 5, Bruno Barreiro 2000 = 175,602. 2010 = 193,265
District 6, Rebeca Sosa 2000 = 174,559. 2010 = 186.719
District 7, Xavier Suarez 2000 175,795. 2010 = 194,477
District 8, Lynda Bell 2000 175,127. 2010 = 206,733
District 9, Dennis Moss 2000 = 172,895. 2010 = 230,102
District 10, Javier Souto 2000 = 178,968. 2010 = 173,610
And then we have the Bad District Commissioners:
District 11, Joe Martinez 2000 = 177,576. 2010 = 213,839
District 12, Jose Pepe Diaz 2000 = 171,960. 2010 = 201,457
District 13, Esteban Bovo 2000 = 173,733. 2010 193,013
Monday, December 05, 2011
Art Basel Wrap-Up: De-Mystifying what is wrong with Miami ... by gimleteye
Saturday night in Wynwood, the exuberant post-industrial quality of Miami was in full plumage. Auto body shops converted to art galleries, if only for the weekend, in the tattooed tropic night-- buildings and walls painted with fantastic graffiti-- music, street food, and the fair. This promise of Miami only lights up a few nights a year.
Then my rosy filter changed. To avoid traffic through Midtown to the expressway, we drove the other direction south, through Overtown back to downtown and the interstate. Empty and desolate as it ever has been, downtown Miami despite the condos, despite the hype, the august commissions and hyperbole of real estate tycoons dressed in debt, is still a sad place to behold, the Detroit of the south.
Fortuitiously the New York Times Sunday edition includes an essay on the public realm that gets straight to the heart of what is wrong with Miami: the absence of a public realm.
Somehow after all these years, the point is still lost on city and county leaders when it comes to the importance of the public realm to Miami-- our city is bankrupt because we surrendered common sense in knitting the urban landscape to real estate developers and their lobbyists/land use attorneys. Our chief features-- Biscayne Bay and the Miami River-- are virtually closed to the public. We turned our backs to those pots of gold. Instead we have a downtown that is empty as the streets at night as the sets of the "Walking Dead". If a city could express self-loathing, the way Miami ceded authority for the public realm is its pure expression.
Its opposite was on display, though, in Wynwood on Saturday night of Art Basel Miami. Specifically the warren of spaces inside city blocks (thank you, Tony Goldman!) covered with wall murals by artists from around the world. Here, if only for a few nights, was a spectacular revision of the public realm.
What made the phenomenon doubly special was to see Wynwood filled with visitors: not from the wealthy capitals of Europe, but from our own native disasters like Kendall and Hialeah. True, they had to drive in cars long distances to be entertained (instead of being to avail themselves of public transit), but in their faces was inarticulate wonder and what a dead landscape could become.
I don't know how to make this point clearer to the decision makers in Miami and Miami-Dade. Park advocates and conservationists have berated, chided, argued and sometimes even litigated against suburban sprawl for decades. This is what "Hold the Line!", the movement to stop the movement of the Urban Development Boundary is all about. Yet sprawl (and condo canyon) advocates-- ie. US Century Bank, zero-rated and filled with plundering insiders-- control the levers of power through a corrupt campaign finance system, and they are unwilling-- absolutely unwilling-- to revise their thinking about decisions that reward land speculators at the cost to the public realm in Miami and Miami-Dade County.
What needs to change is that public investments should be dedicated-- entirely-- and I mean, entirely-- to restoring a public realm in Miami. Does anyone in positions of power even know how to accomplish this? I sure the planners do, but that means listening to them. Outlandish schemes to reward speculators-- like the billions spent on sports stadium and arts centers and highways extensions (like the fiasco of 836) need to halt. I am absolutist on this point for a simple reason: without a complete change in mind-set in our city and county halls, the deal makers and compromisers will find more and new and creative ways to try to give everyone what they want. It is the same shell game that destroyed so much value and quality of life in Miami.
Click 'read more' for the full New York Times article. Some will scoff: oh, but Miami isn't cannot be NYC. But the energy was here last weekend: a version of Miami that can flourish as an economic success. Although the subject is New York City, in important respects it de-mystifies what is wrong with this place we call home.
Then my rosy filter changed. To avoid traffic through Midtown to the expressway, we drove the other direction south, through Overtown back to downtown and the interstate. Empty and desolate as it ever has been, downtown Miami despite the condos, despite the hype, the august commissions and hyperbole of real estate tycoons dressed in debt, is still a sad place to behold, the Detroit of the south.
Fortuitiously the New York Times Sunday edition includes an essay on the public realm that gets straight to the heart of what is wrong with Miami: the absence of a public realm.
Somehow after all these years, the point is still lost on city and county leaders when it comes to the importance of the public realm to Miami-- our city is bankrupt because we surrendered common sense in knitting the urban landscape to real estate developers and their lobbyists/land use attorneys. Our chief features-- Biscayne Bay and the Miami River-- are virtually closed to the public. We turned our backs to those pots of gold. Instead we have a downtown that is empty as the streets at night as the sets of the "Walking Dead". If a city could express self-loathing, the way Miami ceded authority for the public realm is its pure expression.
Its opposite was on display, though, in Wynwood on Saturday night of Art Basel Miami. Specifically the warren of spaces inside city blocks (thank you, Tony Goldman!) covered with wall murals by artists from around the world. Here, if only for a few nights, was a spectacular revision of the public realm.
What made the phenomenon doubly special was to see Wynwood filled with visitors: not from the wealthy capitals of Europe, but from our own native disasters like Kendall and Hialeah. True, they had to drive in cars long distances to be entertained (instead of being to avail themselves of public transit), but in their faces was inarticulate wonder and what a dead landscape could become.
I don't know how to make this point clearer to the decision makers in Miami and Miami-Dade. Park advocates and conservationists have berated, chided, argued and sometimes even litigated against suburban sprawl for decades. This is what "Hold the Line!", the movement to stop the movement of the Urban Development Boundary is all about. Yet sprawl (and condo canyon) advocates-- ie. US Century Bank, zero-rated and filled with plundering insiders-- control the levers of power through a corrupt campaign finance system, and they are unwilling-- absolutely unwilling-- to revise their thinking about decisions that reward land speculators at the cost to the public realm in Miami and Miami-Dade County.
What needs to change is that public investments should be dedicated-- entirely-- and I mean, entirely-- to restoring a public realm in Miami. Does anyone in positions of power even know how to accomplish this? I sure the planners do, but that means listening to them. Outlandish schemes to reward speculators-- like the billions spent on sports stadium and arts centers and highways extensions (like the fiasco of 836) need to halt. I am absolutist on this point for a simple reason: without a complete change in mind-set in our city and county halls, the deal makers and compromisers will find more and new and creative ways to try to give everyone what they want. It is the same shell game that destroyed so much value and quality of life in Miami.
Click 'read more' for the full New York Times article. Some will scoff: oh, but Miami isn't cannot be NYC. But the energy was here last weekend: a version of Miami that can flourish as an economic success. Although the subject is New York City, in important respects it de-mystifies what is wrong with this place we call home.
IRS Scam: The IRS didn't care about the $3,517 Refund Check. By Geniusofdespair
We thought it odd that we got a change of address for someone who has never lived at our address since we had been here 7 years. We also know the previous 2 owners. Immediately in our mind we thought IRS scam.
The person wanted to make the check an electronic transfer according to the IRS letter that came with the check. When that didn't work out (see IRS letter below), in a panic he must have tried to put through a forwarding address before the check was mailed here. The only problem was, the post office sent a letter ASKING us if it was okay to forward the mail. I don't think the guy banked on that. Also, I think it was bad luck for this Michael Kane, that he picked out an address of very, very suspicious people.
We told the Post Office that we DID NOT request mail to be forwarded. At the time of the Post Office letter, we had in our possession for one day the $3,517 Treasury check this guy was trying to get a hold of.
Well to make a long story short, no one cared enough. We still have the check and we don't know what happened, like whether the IRS cut a second check. There is an article in the Herald about someone stealing a tax refund. Maybe this is a new trendy scam.
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Young Fresen and the growing backlash against casinos in Florida ... by gimleteye
What was Fresen thinking? Is he obsessed with GOP talking points, or, does he have other people thinking for him? Water boarding? It could be there is a kitchen cabinet of GOP pollsters and message framers advising young Fresen. GOP leaders, after all, have been on the defensive for years about their leaders (Bush) endorsing water boarding at prisons like Guantanamo Bay. Water boarding: what images does that summon?
Yes, for example, we want casinos so the sound of slot machines can remind us of trying to breathe underwater? Why summon the metaphorical value of water boarding linked to something-- gambling-- that Republicans desperately want? Why not say, for example, that the downtown developers were looking for a little religion (just one or two big casinos) but instead got drowned in ecstasy of Jesus Christ?
Fresen said of the massive Genting plan described by Architectonica in scale drawings, "It went from hydration to water boarding." Why not say, "it went from Sunday at church to mandatory attendance seven days a week"?
Or, that business leaders were looking for in vitro fertilization but instead got triplets? To say you are looking to hydrate but got water boarded instead? Soon enough all those good Christian church-go'ers who support the GOP are going to be demanding that Fresen be water boarded for this escalating controversy. Not so good for young Fresen and the growing backlash against casinos in Florida.
You Won't Believe The Campaign Report of Mayoral Candidate David LiBrace. By Geniusofdespair
 |
| David LiBrace Campaign Report |
David LiBrace is running for Miami Dade County Mayor in 2012. As you can see, he bought some campaign supplies from Universal Life. I thought: "What the hell is that?"
I googled the address and lo and behold, this guy is getting his campaign supplies from an online church. Note the addresses match. What did he order that will help him become mayor? Is he getting ordained online to be a better candidate? He did charge his campaign so it has to be related to his run. How?
He also has some interesting donations...one for $307, a second for $8.49 and a third for $10.01. Most politicians have rounded numbers, not this guy.
Watch out Mayor Carlos Gimenez, this guy running against you appears to be pulpit bound. Praise the lord!
Art Miami, Art Basel Weekend: Got to see both creepy and relevant art. By Geniusofdespair
This is your last day to catch some of the art shows connected with Art Basel. Don't miss the opportunity. What else are you going to do?
In the interest of honesty, I had to photoshop in the bottom of the cans with a 2nd photo.
Saturday, December 03, 2011
Art Basel Weekend. By Geniusofdespair
I went to two satellite shows during Art Basel Weekend: Art Miami and Scope. Here are 3 videos I took on Thursday, December 1st (about a minute each). Watch them so you can lie and say you attended when you are at holiday cocktail parties. Consider these the Cliff Notes of satellite shows. I can't believe about 80% of Miami Herald readers said they are not going to ANY Art Basel events; Philistines. I hope some of you change your mind and go this weekend. This is among the best entertainment Miami Beach and the City of Miami has ever hosted.
Link to Scope Satellite Fair people/art watching Note, the entire venue floor was covered in plywood. It was insane considering the size of the tent.
Link to Art Miami - Video 1
They had a poured concrete floor, but were also in a giant air conditioned tent.
Art Miami Video 2 link.
The saw-horses you will see on the left, they were covered in fur...part of the art.
Link to Scope Satellite Fair people/art watching Note, the entire venue floor was covered in plywood. It was insane considering the size of the tent.
Link to Art Miami - Video 1
They had a poured concrete floor, but were also in a giant air conditioned tent.
Art Miami Video 2 link.
The saw-horses you will see on the left, they were covered in fur...part of the art.
Friday, December 02, 2011
Commissioners Moss and Heyman: Good Work! By Geniusofdespair
Why we shouldn't move the Urban Development Boundary: 2 Miami Dade County Commissioners made the argument yesterday against sprawl on the West side of Miami-Dade (I saved you a few hours by editing, leaving you the best of the hearing):
Link to video.
Commissioner Moss makes a compelling argument. I really do like this guy.
Link to video.
Sally Heyman and Dennis Moss are 2 County Commissioners we can be proud of on this issue. I personally thank them for holding the line on urban sprawl. I also have to thank Commissioners Audrey Edmonson, Javier Souto and Jean Monestime.
Link to video.
Commissioner Moss makes a compelling argument. I really do like this guy.
Link to video.
Sally Heyman and Dennis Moss are 2 County Commissioners we can be proud of on this issue. I personally thank them for holding the line on urban sprawl. I also have to thank Commissioners Audrey Edmonson, Javier Souto and Jean Monestime.
Art Basel, Jorge Perez, Genting and the Miami Art Museum ... by gimleteye
It is fitting that the controversy over the naming of the Miami Art Museum after fallen real estate billionaire Jorge Perez (who says there are no third acts?) comes during Art Basel. In major respects-- including political ones-- Miami is the epicenter of the housing boom and bust in Florida and the nation, and yet the atmospherics surrounding Art Basel and its billions of dollars seem to operate in a parallel universe from the economic calamity befalling the city and county's budgets and the nation's debt crisis. Look no further than the Miami skyline and the ghost suburbs of West and South Dade for clues and fingerprints of the worm-hole connecting them. One who travels freely back and forth through that worm-hole is once-billionaire-now-mere-centi-millionaire Jorge Perez.
Perez is at the center of a nasty controversy over his gift of $35 million (in cash and art-- though the art is not disclosed) to the Miami Art Museum so that it would bear his name until the seas rise and claim Biscayne again.
The note was purchased by the Perez investors less than six months earlier, for a reported $100 million. The original 2007 mortgage was for $220 million from Capmark Financial that had a note extension through June 2012. The Perez investment represented 78 percent of the total senior debt. (Capmark Financial had declared bankruptcy in 2009 and was reorganizing at the time of the note purchase. It was founded by an investment group including KKR, Goldman Sachs, and hedge fund investors.)
Here is part of the backstory. On Sept. 14, 2011 the Miami Herald reported that Genting-- the casino to be-- purchased a $161 million note on the Omni Center from a partnership including Jorge Perez, Jimmy Tate and Sergio Rok.
The note was purchased by the Perez investors less than six months earlier, for a reported $100 million. The original 2007 mortgage was for $220 million from Capmark Financial that had a note extension through June 2012. The Perez investment represented 78 percent of the total senior debt. (Capmark Financial had declared bankruptcy in 2009 and was reorganizing at the time of the note purchase. It was founded by an investment group including KKR, Goldman Sachs, and hedge fund investors.)
Was the timing of the Perez purchase coincidental? On May 27, the Miami Herald announced the Genting purchase of the 13.9 acre Miami Herald site for a cool $236 million. Only 10 days earlier, the press reported the purchase of the Omni debt by the Perez group. Genting intends the Omni for its first casino phase, a development it assumes it will get from the Florida legislature.
There are a few ways to look at the $60 million dollar profit turned by Perez and investors. Perez told the Wall Street Journal he was "saddened" that he would be unable to build the project he had planned. To the Real Deal Online, he said, "First of all, we don't know if casinos are going to happen in Miami. The legislature hasn't approved it, and that's still a debatable question. I don't see the opposition that we saw in past year -- it's not been as vociferous as in the past. I have not taken a position on gambling. I, like every citizen, need to weigh the short-term benefits of increased employment and maybe some trade and tourism with the long-term consequences that could be negative."
One could venture, however, that Perez and certain Genting advisors were deeply involved in mapping out the strategy for the real estate play long before the May public announcements. No one has asked Capmark Financial if it would have held onto its note, had the managers known what was going down at One Herald Square. But that is irrelevant: the Perez investors bought low and sold high (each netting $20 million if they were 1/3 partners in the note) and that from a certain point of view, Genting's name ought to be right alongside Perez' on the new Miami Art Museum.
Miami: Margaritaville on steroids ... by guest blogger
Miami will never be an intellectual bastion. It is and will forever be inhabited by middle class folks, regardless of how much money they have. Our major universities will never be Harvard or Yale, our elected officials will policemen or firemen no matter how high they rise in the hierarchy, and our city planning will always be determined by the well placed coin of the realm. So maybe I have been kidding myself that a mega-casino in the middle of Levittown South would spoil the atmosphere; it will probably fit right in, along with all of the other edifices placed with little or no city planning or foresight. Maybe Hollywood got it right; let Jimmy Buffett define us with his hotel on the boardwalk.
Thursday, December 01, 2011
The County UDB Vote: The X Man Gets an F. By Geniusofdespair
A big thanks goes to all the the County Commissioners who voted NOT to transmit. They shouldn't have had to send this application to the Department of Community Affairs, they should all know on their own that it is wrong to move the UDB line for this Ferro application. Biggest disappointment was Xavier Suarez - he should know better. Hero: Commissioner Dennis Moss. And Javier Souto, what happened to you? Since when do you vote the right way. My world is now upside down. As for Lynda Bell, my expectations are so low, I expected this bad vote from her. She is turning out to be a Natacha Seijas clone.
District | Commissioner | Vote | Notes |
1 | Commissioner Jordan | Transmit | |
2 | Commissioner Monestime | Deny | |
3 | Commissioner Edmonson | Deny | |
4 | Commissioner Heyman | Deny | |
5 | Commissioner Barreiro | Transmit | |
6 | Commissioner Sosa | Not present | |
7 | Commissioner Suarez | Transmit | |
8 | Commissioner Bell | Transmit | |
9 | Commissioner Moss | Deny | VERY positive speech again moving the UDB and for infill development |
10 | Commissioner Souto | Deny | |
11 | Commissioner Martinez | Transmit | |
12 | Commissioner Diaz | Transmit | |
13 | Commissioner Bovo | Transmit |
The Urban Development Boundary: yesterday at the County Commission ... by gimleteye
I wish there were some way to hard-wire the facts of suburban sprawl-- and how it wrecked the economy-- to the citizens inhabiting the sad tent city outside County Hall, Occupy Miami.
Yesterday's decision at the County Commission related to moving the Urban Development Boundary was preliminary, perfunctory and perfectly illustrated the economic forces at work, destroying taxpayer value through the piecemeal subjugation of sensible planning to speculators. All those occupiers should have been upstairs in County Hall, paying attention and learning how to detect snake oil sold as "jobs!"
I haven't been to a County Commission meeting since the end of the Seijas era. Yesterday's meeting showed that in key respects, nothing has changed: democracy serves a failed model of growth and economic development.
During the building boom years, phalanxes of land use lawyers and lobbyists organized to move the Urban Development Boundary. Yesterday two were there, and one-- Miguel Diaz de la Portilla-- recited the property owner's reasons to move the line expertly as if by memory. At least for some, on the side of moving the line, the arguments are hard-wired.
In my brief testimony (that had Commissioner Joe Martinez searching for his stopwatch), I asked the commissioners to consider showing taxpayers of Miami-Dade County that the crash of housing markets-- the worst since the Great Depression-- they understood that the costs of suburban sprawl needed to be tamed, now. Now, I offered (after nearly 20 years trying to persuade them), they might start to focus taxpayer resources on improving already established communities and not continue the senseless push of sprawl and its awful costs into farmlands edging the Everglades.
Yesterday's vote was only the first step in changing the Urban Development Boundary, but it was a very important one. If the commissioners had voted to "deny" the application, the matter would have been put to rest. One might have even been able to say; a new day had dawned. At least until the next (this was the fourth time the applicant has attempted to get his project approved) cycle of applications.
The choice to "transmit"-- a decision by a 7 to 5 vote-- serves an important purpose for the speculators. What they aim to do is to test the administration of Gov. Rick Scott.
What the 'transmit' vote means is that the state will now offer its review to the commission of an application that was rejected by county planning staff and approved by the lame community council and Planning Advisory Board; mainly comprised of developer representatives. In the past, the state's position with respect to the Urban Development Boundary-- a sprawl litmus test-- has sometimes been adversarial. Even when it wasn't, citizen opponents had the opportunity to use state regulations to pursue the arguments against ill-planned developments in an administrative court. This was the case in the application to build a new Lowe's Home Improvement Store outside the UDB in 2005. (The chief shills for Lowe's on the county commission were Commissioners Joe Martinez, Pepe Diaz and Natacha Seijas.) But now the rules have changes.
In the last session of the Florida legislature, the speculators took advantage of the economic crisis to get what they wanted: the eradication of the review agency, the Florida Department of Community Affairs. What remains of its power, today, is severely limited. Local speculators are in the process of testing what the state will do, the way some people use spears to prod at sharks landed on the backside of a fishing boat to see how they will react.
The question now: will the state exercise any power to thwart the speculators? The answer is critical not just for the single property owner, but the dozens of politically powerful property owners who purchased huge tracts of land outside the UDB at speculative values before the full extent of the real estate crash unfolded. US Century Bank, Ramon Rasco and its directors, for example.
Occupy Miami protesters should pay attention because the forces at work yesterday were the local branches of the Wall Street failure. Those mortgage backed securities that blew up the economy (and on the screen of the terrific movie, "Margin Call") have a birth place: they start with zoning decisions and platted subdivisions and retail strip malls for which demand was manufactured out of ether.
On some days, the forlorn landscape of West Dade-- where the applicant's property is located-- feels empty and threatening as any post-apocaplytic science fiction fantasy. Houses are boarded up. Foreclosures are rampant. Hundreds of square acres half-built and prepped to dissolve in the wetlands under the harsh Florida sun like the dregs of a bad dream where the law is whatever anyone makes of it. One half expects Mad Max to roll up in a crazed vehicle cobbled together from scrap and fueled on waste cooking oil. That is the legacy of the housing bubble and crash in the dregs of suburbia. Yesterday the County Commission showed it still operates by the old rules. We'll see how this turns out, won't we?
Yesterday's decision at the County Commission related to moving the Urban Development Boundary was preliminary, perfunctory and perfectly illustrated the economic forces at work, destroying taxpayer value through the piecemeal subjugation of sensible planning to speculators. All those occupiers should have been upstairs in County Hall, paying attention and learning how to detect snake oil sold as "jobs!"
I haven't been to a County Commission meeting since the end of the Seijas era. Yesterday's meeting showed that in key respects, nothing has changed: democracy serves a failed model of growth and economic development.
During the building boom years, phalanxes of land use lawyers and lobbyists organized to move the Urban Development Boundary. Yesterday two were there, and one-- Miguel Diaz de la Portilla-- recited the property owner's reasons to move the line expertly as if by memory. At least for some, on the side of moving the line, the arguments are hard-wired.
In my brief testimony (that had Commissioner Joe Martinez searching for his stopwatch), I asked the commissioners to consider showing taxpayers of Miami-Dade County that the crash of housing markets-- the worst since the Great Depression-- they understood that the costs of suburban sprawl needed to be tamed, now. Now, I offered (after nearly 20 years trying to persuade them), they might start to focus taxpayer resources on improving already established communities and not continue the senseless push of sprawl and its awful costs into farmlands edging the Everglades.
Yesterday's vote was only the first step in changing the Urban Development Boundary, but it was a very important one. If the commissioners had voted to "deny" the application, the matter would have been put to rest. One might have even been able to say; a new day had dawned. At least until the next (this was the fourth time the applicant has attempted to get his project approved) cycle of applications.
The choice to "transmit"-- a decision by a 7 to 5 vote-- serves an important purpose for the speculators. What they aim to do is to test the administration of Gov. Rick Scott.
What the 'transmit' vote means is that the state will now offer its review to the commission of an application that was rejected by county planning staff and approved by the lame community council and Planning Advisory Board; mainly comprised of developer representatives. In the past, the state's position with respect to the Urban Development Boundary-- a sprawl litmus test-- has sometimes been adversarial. Even when it wasn't, citizen opponents had the opportunity to use state regulations to pursue the arguments against ill-planned developments in an administrative court. This was the case in the application to build a new Lowe's Home Improvement Store outside the UDB in 2005. (The chief shills for Lowe's on the county commission were Commissioners Joe Martinez, Pepe Diaz and Natacha Seijas.) But now the rules have changes.
In the last session of the Florida legislature, the speculators took advantage of the economic crisis to get what they wanted: the eradication of the review agency, the Florida Department of Community Affairs. What remains of its power, today, is severely limited. Local speculators are in the process of testing what the state will do, the way some people use spears to prod at sharks landed on the backside of a fishing boat to see how they will react.
The question now: will the state exercise any power to thwart the speculators? The answer is critical not just for the single property owner, but the dozens of politically powerful property owners who purchased huge tracts of land outside the UDB at speculative values before the full extent of the real estate crash unfolded. US Century Bank, Ramon Rasco and its directors, for example.
Occupy Miami protesters should pay attention because the forces at work yesterday were the local branches of the Wall Street failure. Those mortgage backed securities that blew up the economy (and on the screen of the terrific movie, "Margin Call") have a birth place: they start with zoning decisions and platted subdivisions and retail strip malls for which demand was manufactured out of ether.
On some days, the forlorn landscape of West Dade-- where the applicant's property is located-- feels empty and threatening as any post-apocaplytic science fiction fantasy. Houses are boarded up. Foreclosures are rampant. Hundreds of square acres half-built and prepped to dissolve in the wetlands under the harsh Florida sun like the dregs of a bad dream where the law is whatever anyone makes of it. One half expects Mad Max to roll up in a crazed vehicle cobbled together from scrap and fueled on waste cooking oil. That is the legacy of the housing bubble and crash in the dregs of suburbia. Yesterday the County Commission showed it still operates by the old rules. We'll see how this turns out, won't we?
How do rich people vent? With full page ads. By Geniusofdespair
Rich people, do some things with us low-life people once in a while then maybe we will care about the stupid name of your museum. Where were you today during the UDB hearing? Don't care, do you?
Truthfully I am glad you are going to be saddled with that crappy Jorge Perez name on your art museum. Serves you right for letting him into your little club just because he has money. You might note we have a category for Jorge Perez on this blog -- none for you Mary and Howard Frank, which makes you lucky I guess.
Marty Margulies must be laughing his ass off, he wasn't too fond of the way he was treated by MAM folks.
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