Ajamil Bermello: members of the Growth Machine nomenklatura ... by gimleteye

Nomenklatura: a category of people within the Soviet Union and other Eastern bloc countries who held various key administrative positions in all sphere's of those countries' activity: government, industry, agriculture, education, engineering and infrastructure development.

In Miami-Dade (and Florida) there is a parallel nomenklatura. Some key members of our own domestic nomenklatura are on parade through the effort to extend the Dolphin Expressway south on the western edge of the county, directly threatening Everglades National Park and benefiting land speculators who purchased property in anticipation of the growth of suburban sprawl: they are also key members of the nomenklatura and include Rodney Barreto, Ramon Rasco, Ed Easton and Sergio Pino.

This week, the board of the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority (MDX) unanimously approved adding the extension of the SR 836. Nearly 200 people voiced opposition to the project. Although it is not a done deal, changes to state law and agencies under Gov. Rick Scott and the anti-environmental GOP Florida legislature are going to make it quite difficult for citizens to stop the expansion that will expose many thousands acres of farmland to development pressure.

The local engineering firm, Ajamil Bermello, has put its shoulder to this wheels of progress.

Ajamil Bermello's Tere Garcia is providing public relations support for the MDX board. In response to opponents, she wrote recently in the professional, neutral tone that masks the frenetic investments of political energy to plow more highway in service of sprawl: "The extension of SR 836 is envisioned as a multimodal facility, used also by express transit buses, that would address the existing transportation needs of a vast community of thousands of existing residents living in the southwestern areas of Miami-Dade County west of the Turnpike. There will be no recommendation on MDX's behalf to move the Urban Development Boundary Line. Any alternative to be identified as part of the study must be evaluated considering all environmental requirements, sound engineering practices, be financially feasible and enjoy the support of those served."

Bermello Ajamil is part of the nomenclature that Occupy Miami and the rest of the Occupy movement ought to study. It takes a village to raise a child and confident engineers to wreck the village.

Willy Bermello, a founding partner of the engineering firm, famously tooted the housing boom in the Miami Herald in May 2005 at just about the same time much of the land in question in the SR 836 expansion was being purchased by nomenklatura friends: "This bubble is not latex," he wrote, "but stainless steel." The Herald provided no opportunity for rebuttal, showing its publisher also knew his place.

The point is that the worst economy since the Great Depression have not thwarted, changed, or modified the goals of the nomenklatura in Miami-Dade in the slightest. Ms. Garcia notes that the initial planning for the extension of SR 836 began in 2007: indeed, all that shows is that the nomenklatura have been intent-- from the start-- to build sprawl to the edge of the Everglades just like Broward.

In this scenario, the Urban Development Boundary turned out to provide the rationale for a generation of political influence peddling to destroy rules and regulations to protect the Everglades and local, rural communities.

So Ajamil Bermello and a cadre of Miami-Dade lobbyists attached to the Growth Machine continue to promote schemes and infrastructure "improvements" like the expansion of SR 836 that serve the same purpose they did during the run up to the worst housing market crash in a century: using infrastructure to sprinkle suburban sprawl on the landscape like confectionary sugar. Have we learned anything? No. There have been no penalties-- none-- imposed for the political and economic behavior that lead to so much carnage, and without penalties there will be no change in behavior. Is it human nature to impose the greed of a few over the lives of the many? Have we learned anything in this age of information engorgement? Never has information been more plentiful nor wisdom so scarce.

A year ago, Ms. Garcia (also on the board of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce) offered the following pitch to progress; building more highways like the SR 836 extension. Think of it as a study group in conformity, in which "public outreach" is every bit as staged as the stagecraft perfected by the nomenklatura in the Soviet Union or, for that matter, Cuba.