Good to hear that Jim Defede is going to host a Sunday news talk show on CBS4. I rarely watch the local or national Sunday morning news shows. Invited guests and their well-rehearsed talking points compel me in other directions. But when I do stick around, I am struck my the timidity of hosts who stay to a more or less scripted format. Defede did a predictable, yawn of an interview with Senator Marco Rubio, during the recent flurry of interest related to his possible inclusion on a Romney ticket. Maybe that's what gave the CBS executives confidence he is their man. I miss Defede's outstanding work for Miami New Times. His investigations disclosed the fiasco of the Homestead Air Force Base/ HABDI deal lead me on a seven year odyssey to defeat the proposed $10 billion boondoggle.
Defede didn't fit the Herald. Herald executives, brutally focused on the bottom line, wanted to 'offend no advertisers'. On television news, from time to time Defede has done excellent investigative reports. He understands Miami's pain. Whether he will be allowed to expose it or just be another fair-minded arbiter of talking points tied to the half hour format's four poster bed: we'll see.
There is no news about Parrot Jungle that surprises Eyeonmiami. We derided the $40 million boondoggle approved by the city and county from the start. In Miami Dade, stuff (ie. what is funded by taxpayers) slips away by the tens of millions. Parrot Jungle has plenty of company; the beat goes on. The question arises, why can't Miami civic and business leaders come to terms with an urban grid that makes no sense, before putting billions of dollars of investment in the wrong places? Parrot Jungle out on Watson Island was insanity. Who goes there? Now the owner wants more concessions in order to off-load his debt to an anonymous investor.
Mayor Regaldo told the Miami Herald, "the fundamental problem is that their business plan isn't viable." Thank you, Mayor Regalado.
To me, it is as viable as Donald Trump putting a movie studio down at the Homestead Air Force Base, next to the baseball stadium that never attracted a viable business. Or the Homestead Race Track that lined someone's pockets with tens of millions. Wonders never cease in these parts, do they?
A student from Mast Academy, Avalon Hoek Spaans, wrote me out of the blue. She is a senior and president of Mast Academy's environmental club. Avalon objects to the effort by Key Biscayne residents to turn Mast from magnet high school off of Biscayne Bay, focusing on maritime and environmental issues, into a larger, general high school serving the Key. "I am not emailing you to pick sides on the political part of this issue; I am emailing you as a fellow environmentalist who is not only concerned about my schools future, but the future of the habitat and the environment surrounding Mast Academy." Well, I am picking sides.
I say, leave the school alone. It is a rare gem in Miami-Dade County. I propose converting the government buildings recently constructed on Key Biscayne into a high school. Let the politicians work out of mobile trailers in the Parrot Jungle parking lot. The City of Key Biscayne could hold public meetings with the parrots on bikes on a high wire going back and forth. Why not?
This could be a good topic for TV host Cristina Saralegui. But the Hispanic Oprah is going to busy as spokesperson for President Obama's election. Thanks for your note, Avalon Hoek Spaans. I'm picking up the phone now: smong Miami audiences, only Cristina has higher ratings than Eyeonmiami. We're working on bringing the Key Biscayne trauma to Cristina's attention. Happy Monday, Mitt. (The Washington Post is doing excerpts from Manuel Roig-Franzia's "The Rise of Marco Rubio". The Senator who still will not meet with climate change scientists.)
8 comments:
whats up with all those new comers in the Commission races. Who can beat the incumbents and who has no chance? Will Braman's candidates win?
I can't find a web site for Moss or others, can you help?
Watch out for those Key Biscayne residents, they have an angry entitled faction. They are also trying to get their mitts on Bill Baggs land for their soccer fields. I saw Raquel Regalado on DeFede's show, looks like she is all for the school idea. The City of Key Biscayne is throwing money and the School Board is catching. I do think the trade-off does one positive thing: It will be one less charter school. Read the column by Fred Grimm:
Meanwhile, the charter school operators (with all the clout in Tallahassee) are circling like sharks, sensing lucrative new business opportunities in underfunded public school districts. Without a high school, wealthy Key Biscayne becomes easy prey for the charter industry. The deal between the Village and the school district, if nothing else, would keep the charters from poaching another chunk of the district’s high achieving students. And stave off the Tallahassee-driven strategy to reduce traditional public schools to a collection of repositories for the poor, underachieving, difficult, disabled and minority students — kids who never see the bay.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/16/v-fullstory/2853286/mast-battle-pits-haves-vs-have.html#storylink=cpy
"To me, it is as viable as Donald Trump putting a movie studio down at the Homestead Air Force Base, next to the baseball stadium that never attracted a viable business. Or the Homestead Race Track that lined someone's pockets with tens of millions. Wonders never cease in these parts, do they?"
Can't you tell? Shiver is most certainly back in town! The poor taxpayers of Homestead - and I do mean poor! Their property values are still in the tank though the rest of South Florida is on the upswing! I wonder what the millage is going to be this year there or what else they need to cut to not raise property taxes.
Talk about boondoggles - that entire City is on big one! Whatever happened to the Air Show being supported by the Beacon Council? That seems to have disappeared and thank goodness someone at the Federal level put the brakes on another bad idea from these clowns.
Poor post Gimleteye. You should have read Grimms before you weighed in. Spaans used you. The MAST alumni and parents are acting like an angry, entitled faction. They seem to think that the lottery bought them a public school.
Dear Anonymous,
We did not buy a school, nor did we win one through a lottery.
We, the taxpayers of Miami-Dade County, own the PUBLIC schools in the County, which are all supported and financed by us, with our tax dollars, and who will probably end up with the bill for this F7 plan. Do you really think that only 9 million dollars given by Key Biscayne will cover the whole cost for this project? Besides construction, guess who will pay for teachers, the maintenance of the school, etc.? As to MAST, they did not win anything, its excellence is due to the hard work and the accomplishments of its students and teachers and the magnet program. If you had ever work hard for something you would understand why they are fighting for MAST's survival.
Is MAST acting in entitled fashion Anonymous?
Where is the commitment by the School Board and Key Biscayne that the magnet program will continue there?
There's a lot of mistrust. Many believe that in about 5 years from now there would probably be a petition from Key Biscayne to kick the MAST magnet program out of there: "Sorry people, but we have too many kids to accommodate in our local High School and we need the magnet program space, get moving.."
And a good definition of sense of entitlement is when a person is only allowed to watch 4th of July fireworks on a beach in Key Biscayne by showing at the public access to the beach his/hers driver's license to prove he live in the Island...
We in Homestead are very interested in knowing what Johanna is up to ... from your blog. Homestead is home blog is not good and pro Faddis, Shehadeh and Bell
so, please keep it flowing
There are a couple of important issues that haven't really been focused on enough in the MAST Academy discussion. The first is the secretive way in which this all happened. Teachers and parents didn't find out until school was out, the same day an article appeared in the Islander News, the Key Biscayne paper. One has to wonder if they'd have heard at all if that article hadn't been published. The second is the fact that MUCH of what accounts for the success of schools like MAST, DASH, and New World is their small size. Enlarging MAST will change its character and mission forever. And having some students chosen by lottery while others get in via their zip code can only create a them-and-us mentality. This was not thought out or well-planned and I fear the students, many of whom are decidedly NOT a part of any elite group, will be the ones to pay.
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