Did you know that Bill Johnson, one of the Port Directors (yes we have two), wants to install dozens of massive LED billboards on Dodge Island aimed at tourists and residents using the MacArthur Causeway?And in West Miami I heard that they have a new sign ordinance in the works:
- 35 feet tall (that's the height of a 2-story building)
- 500 feet apart (along 8th Street, that's 1 billboard per city block)!!!! That means from 57 Ave. to 67 Ave. there could be 10 billboards just on our side of 8th St.
- maximum of 300 square feet sign area (remember there's 2 sides per billboard). That means a possible 25 ft x 12 ft sign, times 2.
All of this would be just like the existing monster, flashing and blinking with LED color and digital reading copy and physical movement. Picture these all along 67 Ave from Coral Way to 8th St., all along 57 Ave from 8th St to 16 St, all along 8th St from 57 Ave to 67 Ave, and if the annexation petition is approved, continuing to 71 Ave.
Won't Coral Gables love what their neighbor is proposing?
17 comments:
Clear Channel and other billboard companies prey on weak elected officials. Coral Gables bans billboards. So billboard companies put billboards on the entrances to Coral Gables. They take advantage of weak officials at the City of Miami and in West Miami, two city's that border Coral Gables.
West Miami residents are trying to fight back. Billboard companies dangle dollars but they fail to disclose that once a billboard goes up it is often up for 40-50 years AND billboards reduce property values.
Oh that Bill Johnson!! The fact that he is still at the port after in effect resigning surprises me. The fact that he probably thinks these billboards are really cool - does not surprise me. What a fool - welcome to tacky land all you tourists! YUCK!
Just another instance of tacky, short-sightedness from Miami officials. Blight and poverty does not a world-class city make.
At the Port - it's not about the advertising its about the advertising income. - the Port loses hundreds of thousands every year, is deeply in debt and bond analysts like Moody's question whether the Port will ever be able to pay back its obligations, that's why the bonds were downgraded. The Port is desperate for any monies. Too bad. We all suffer.
Hey Maybe Gimenez can sell billboard space on the side of all the public libraries - that way they don't have to restore the millage rate to pay for them.
Bill Johnson wants to raise revenues with the billboard advertising, which already exists in a meager way, and you will see driving on the McAurther Cswy, although not in LED form yet. The revenues are needed for all the Port bond debt with recent downgrades. Also to pay the other director's $300,000 salary. Director Designate Juan Kuryla whose background includes reassignment from his Public Works post to a remote field location because of improprieties, personal bankruptcy, coworker love affair leading to divorce, shady dealings with potential port vendors and clients resulting in Inspector General investigation, inability to show up for work before 10am, aggressive behavior toward law enforcement at traffic stops and other unstable episodes. He is favored by this administration and commission because of his ability to cater to their needs, including numerous junkets to foreign locations using a Port Budget loophole. The Port budget also includes a $5million line item for payment in a legal judgment against the County for a judges ruling that the Port of Miami has a way of doling certain business permits illegally protecting incumbents -- ``creating a handful of entrenched privileged companies". The judge said evidence showed other ``established, qualified, competent and trustworthy,'' companies were denied permits even as some incumbents who didn't use their permits received automatic renewals. This is a rare surfacing of the hidden backchannel network that exists in the County for every major expenditure where privileged insiders are awarded business while those who are not tied into the system of lobbyists, commissioner aides and certain County staff are denied. Kuryla is person most responsible for this lawsuit due to his ability to manipulate the formal selection process. We need those LED billboards and their revenue.
I am a resident of West Miami and we love our small city. We know billboards, especially mini-LED billboards, will degrade our business and commercial areas and devalue our residential properties as well. We hope our elected officials will deny the proposed legislation that could open the door to more ugly billboards.
I'm surprised nobody offered a billion dollar bond to erect billboards and rent them to advertising companies. We could pay off the debt in thirty plus years (granted they don't ever get destroyed in a hurricane). Anybody want to hire me as a lobbyist. I'll call Goldman Sachs now. Anybody?
It seems to me like politicians are the only ones who are in love with these screaming, obnoxious LED signs. It’s like crack cocaine to them. So much that it makes you wonder just how much in kickback bucks these sign companies are expending in the greasing of political hands in one way or another.
Is there any difference between the buildings that are lit up in different colors in downtown mia, the buildings lit up with the go go dancing lady that can be seen in the background shots of nightly news casts and these led billboards?
Billboards and especially the ugly distracting LED billboards are putrid. The Miami-Dade County Attorney writes the LED billboards violate the County Sign Code. Now Carlos Gimenez needs to honor his campaign promise and enforce the County Code. Or is Gimenez being bribed?
Coral Gables, the City Beautiful, might help West Miami activists fight illegal LED billboards. Teamwork.
As long as Gimenez keeps hiring incompetent buffoons without a competitive search process, we will continue to see moronic proposals such as this one. I am still waiting for Gimenez to post a director position vacancy and hold competitive interviews like they do everywhere else.
Gimenez's corrupt hiring system that is limited to his circle of friends is a disgrace that hurts our community. When will the commission wake up and create a policy to end it?
Coral Gables may not have LED billboards, but visual pollution is rampant. Just take a ride down Segovia Ave (between Coral Way and Bird) and witness the Bike Lane signs on EVERY block, and myriad of other miscellaneous signs. Visual pollution exists in a multitude of ways.
Visual pollution exists in Coral Gables but to a much lesser extent: no huge, flashing, distracting, myriad colors on proposed ILLEGAL LED SIGNS. That is the difference, and we applaud municipalities like Coral Gables and Miami Beach, thankfully, which do not allow these ILLEGAL LED SIGNS.
Children's Museum on Watson Island, really an illegal for-profit charter school, just finished installing an illegal LED billboard. Aimed at Miami Beach tourists and residents. Approved by City of Miami Commissioners.
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