YOU MUST WATCH THIS VIDEO! Frankly I am appalled. These are people showing up at a public hearing - Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez is hosting Budget Town Hall Meetings where residents were supposed to feel free ask Mayor Gimenez and staff about the proposed Fiscal Year 2013-2014 County budget. The people were speaking politely and this is what they got in exchange. They should not have been disrespected by the Mayor. Why invite people to speak and then insult them? (This video will not work on a phone, I urge you to find a computer and watch it.)
GO TONIGHT!!! SHOW HIM THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO CARE. THIS IS THE LAST HEARING!
Date: Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Location: Florida City, City Hall, 404 West Palm Drive, Florida City, FL 33034
45 comments:
Most people out of the 2.5 million don't have the patience or time to go to public hearings to protest. Gimenez only hears what he wants to hear, or, what his big funders tell him to hear.
That was rude, all he had to do was say thank you for coming.
Are you really kidding me? People are OK with loss of fire and library services. Not where I live. I work, my children have demands on my time. Following the Mayor around to make sure he does his job is not part of my job description. Does he need a recall committee to get it right?
Better start listening to those who take the time to attend. Those same folks that follow him around are the ones who will can form a recall group. All I had to do is vote to make him mayor. Recall just takes another vote to remove him. I have time to vote.
If Florida City is too far south,
Go visit the Four Commissioners who might listen to reason:
district10@miamidade.gov
305-375-4835
305-375-3456 Fax
Commissioner Javier D. Souto
District 10
Stephen P. Clark Center
111 N.W. 1st Street, Suite 320
Miami, Florida 33128
Commissioner Xavier L. Suarez
District 7
Stephen P. Clark Center
111 N.W. First Street, Suite 220
Miami, FL 33128
District7@miamidade.gov
District Office
6130 Sunset Drive
S. Miami, FL 33143
305-669-4003
305-669-4044 Fax
Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz - more likely
District 12
Stephen P. Clark Center
111 N.W. First Street, Suite 320
Miami, FL 33128
District12@miamidade.gov
District Office
8345 N.W. 12th St
Miami, FL 33126
305-599-1200
305-470-1791 Fax
Commissioner Bruno Barreiro - more likely
District 5
Stephen P. Clark Center
111 N.W. 1st Street, Suite 220
Miami, Florida 33128
district5@miamidade.gov
305-375-5924
305-375-5904
MAYOR GIMENEZ’S PLAN BEGINS 10/1/2013
• 49 LIBRARIES ARE PARTIALLY SHUT DOWN (Days & Hours)
• 169 LIBRARY STAFF OF 440 ARE SCHEDULED TO BE LAID OFF
• 2 BOOKMOBILES ARE SHUT DOWN
The one opportunity for a reconsideration vote is at 5:01 on TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2013 at the BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSION’S NEXT MEETING, 111 NW 1 Street.
THE SOLUTION
• TWO COMMISSIONERS MUST VOTE TO RAISE THE LIBRARY’S MILLAGE TO .2993 THIS FILLS THE $13 MILLION GAP FOR THE LIBRARY TO STAY INTACT
LIBRARIES WITHOUT LIBRARIANS ARE NOT LIBRARIES.
TWO FREE EVENTS A Celebration of Libraries
Tuesday, September 3 @ 7:00 pm at the Miami Beach Cinematheque
Guest speakers and then a showing a screening of Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 admission is FREE with a library card.
Parking: $1 an hour at the garage at 12th Street and Drexel Ave. FREE copies of Ray Bradbury’s classic will be given away to the first 15 arrivals.
Saturday, September 7 @ 7:00 pm at the Pinecrest Garden’s Banyan Bowl
Guest speakers and then a showing a screening of Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 admission is FREE.
The events are not fundraisers. We are simply trying to get the word out about the imminent danger to our public libraries, a community resource designed to lift everyone culturally and educationally.
For more information visit: https://www.facebook.com/SaveTheMiamiDadePublicLibraries
You would be better off going to the hearing.
The Mayor is too blunt and has an attention span of a meth addict.
While his advisors have stopped Mayor Gimenez from repeatedly dead ending the audience with the answer "it is what it is," they haven't been able to tweak the robotic coldness from his responses. There's a glee to the fact that he sits on a throne until 2016. Except, 560,000 animal lovers + 169 organized librarians who are out of work and some good looking firemen/women will be out getting 50,000 signatures in November. It's inevitable. The repeated message of sustainability through smaller government betrays a lack of deeper thoughtfulness and care for his employees or the residents. Here's a 28 second video from his interview with the Miami Herald editorial board. It's about trying to close 13 libraries in 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8VkCIBq43k
who was at the podium?
Red shirts are Pets Trust representatives.
Check out Mayor Gimenez's imperial wave at the end of his speech - trying to quiet the masses that have dared to disagree with him.
Is this guy for real?
Pet's Trust but speaking for thousands of frustrated residents who are getting no respect or essential services.
Or, the kind lady speaking just happened to pick out a red dress to wear that evening. I was at that West Miami Library meeting -there must have been well over 200 people there - all night speakers lined up to give their 2 minutes worth - it went on for four plus hours, till the Mayor pulled the plug by closing down the line.
This whole show is about Gimenez auditioning for Tea Party darling, hence the robotic talking points. Remember when he refused to extend the early voting days? Or shut down the Sunday voting at the Elections Department although there were hundreds of people in line waiting? Gimenez is following a script. Consequences on the community are irrelevant.
Local government is for union lobbyists and union representatives. I stopped going years ago.
And land use attorneys.
And FPL.
GEE-men-ezz is merely using one of Bell's tried and true crowd control techniques. The only thing missing is the incessant gavel pounding.
If he were forthcoming, he'd say this regarding the county's libraries:
The plan is to shortchange 16 branches with service covering four hours out of the day, four days a week. The plan is to use an entry-level librarian and two part-time shelvers to replace four full time staff at these 16 branches. The plan is to offer little to no updated resources systemwide. The plan is to lay off 40% of the 440 trained staff leaving all branches critically shorthanded (221 to run 49 locations.) The plan ends bookmobile services. The plan is to roll the library into the general fund so that it competes with other departments for funding, although this administration considers it a very low priority. Or one theoretical plan zeroes out the reserves, weakens the budget, closes the inner city branches keeping the Regional Branches (as publicized in July,) reduces the workforce thus making the remaining libraries attractive to a private company. The ultimate plan is to offer so little as a government entity that the library is ineffective, inefficient and reduced to an afterthought.
The Mayor’s plan temporarily patches together a crippled system, but the true intent is to let it whither and die, I live in a 3 bedroom house in Coral Gables. I will save $45 a year on my tax bill when all the public libraries are eventually closed under his administration.
Why should county staff and the mayor be subjected to the same speeches from the same, single-issue people over and over again?
As a pet owner, I understand wanting to protect animals, but some of these people are certifiable. Can't you hear them jeering him? Just because he is an elected official doesn't mean he has to sit there and be abused.
The union folks are the worst of all. They have no sense of proportion and could care less what they do to the taxpayers or their fellow employees.
The whole thing with the libraries is totally overblown. Most of the residents and taxpayers of this county never step foot in a public library, yet the tiny minority who uses them demand that we pay any and every price for their access.
The mayor is absolutely right on this budget stance and he has a lot of supporters out there.
If the County library system is effectively shut down and municipalities like Coral Gables are forced to take over the libraries (or given them to private library companies like LSSI, which has already taken over the library systems in Osceola and Sumter County - then the city will tack on a surcharge to every resident - hence costing more. And poor cities -like Opa-locka - they will not be able to afford any libraries at all - so their only library will be shut down - as was Gimenez first plan when he blithely proposed shutting down 22 libraries and firing 250 staff.
The public is being kept in the dark as to the end game here.
These questions need to be asked TONIGHT in Florida City Town Hall meeting, 6 p.m.
Really, sports stadiums and other give aways for millionaires make us a world class community, but somehow we can do without even a competent library system? I'm not buying it. We are better than that.
Do we want to be the next Detroit with feral dogs running the streets? Does anyone not see animal services as a general public health issue? And I personally like Animal Services. I just adopted a small dog from there back at the beginning of July. The members of the department are working their tails off and deserve an appropriate level of funding to do their jobs, with a heart and protect all concerned.
All this would cause me to have a heart attack, but I best not suffer one while my local fire rescue provider may be on a brown out!
Signed,
Your bud.
Most residents never go into a library...said a person who does not go speaking for all the others in the county.
If you never go to the beach, are lifeguards relevant? You will never use one in your life so why are you paying for this?
Based on the few callous words, it sounds as if you've got cash to burn, a great job, and lots of opportunities to consume - the world's your oyster.
If you, your family, your neighbor, your friend has a downward turn in life, a library is a social safety net. Can't afford to take a language course? Try Mango Languages 24 hours a day. Want to become a citizen, a doctor, lawyer, pass the GED? Take practice tests with Learning Express from home. Got a second grader who reads 10 books a week at $15 /book? Printer broke down at home? Want to trace your Geneology? Want to download free and legal music? need boilerplate contracts? Need an advocate?
Where've you been sir? Well, just like a mother, the library welcomes everyone back when they realize that the library is there for them.
Check your tax bill. What you meagerly pay versus what expansive resources that can use is eye opening. Selling off the properties is a short term windfall. Selling yourself short is a lifetime loss.
https://www.facebook.com/SaveTheMiamiDadePublicLibraries
Yes, the mayor and his staff should hear the same speeches over and over again. One, he invited people to come to his meeting to speak their mind, ask questions, whatever. Two, the Mayor and his extensive entourage (staff) are getting paid to be there, by the taxpayers who show up at his town hall meeting.
Will be interesting to see who shows up tonight to defend the Mayor - are they OK with subsidizing the Dolphin's makeover, also favored by Gimenez? I never go to a Marlins, Heat or Dolphins game but I'm expected to contribute to those stadiums and teams, despite the millionaire moguls who own them. The least County govt. could do is provide a decent library. Taxpayers don't ask too much, really. A park, a water sewer system that doesn't crumble, cutting the grass at a public park every once in a while. A fireman to put out a fire or save you from a heart attack, garbage pick up. Come on....
County government is bloated in every department, including the library system. It's time to call a spade a spade.
People are tired of paying for an ever growing bureaucracy that eats every tax dollar tossed into its gaping maw.
Manage with the money you have just like the rest of us must do.
Review your tax bill. There is a line item for libraries. 0.17 cents per $1,000 of property. Average homeowner pays $20. One hardback book costs $27.00. Please help point out exactly the bloat or is it easier just to point out assumptions.
Libraries cost too damn much? Check this out:
http://mdpls.org/catalog/lib_calc.asp
We all care about the county and we have proven this through deeds and not just words.
The little that I have done is by no means exceptional and while the details of the extras we do vary from person to person, what you I write is largely representative of library staff including that employee who was insulted:
The Commissioner should know that I've never filed a mileage form reimbursement form even though I've spent a lot of my money driving to conduct Public Computer Training, staff computer training, to cover other locations and half a dozen other things. Neither did I take the tuition reimbursement while earning my M.A. in Library Science. These two steps alone saved the county thousands of dollars.
I actually took it seriously when the Commissioners and my Mayor said that the county was short of funds. Did the folks who put up the Marlin's stadium that hardly anyone goes to do the same? How many years could we keep all of our libraries open with that wasted money alone?
I know the Commissioner is unaware of the time I went to my branch at midnight and picked up the rotting, stinking carcass of a 60 pound dead dog. I stuck the corpse in my own car because the county failed to follow through on its promise to "take care of it." My patrons should not have to walk by that when they visit the library.
Neither does he know that I come to work at my branch ten or fifteen or sometimes even twenty minutes early every single day. I pick up all kinds of nasty litter, including dead rats, beer bottles, broken glass, bandages and discarded fast food from all around parking lot and the property. I do this because the families in this very poor, but dignified community, deserve to come to a clean library.
I've gone out pocket plenty of times and bought things that were only to use at work, that I had little use for at home. Most I have put on permanent loan and others I have given to the library outright. I guess he doesn't know that I bought a screen for my branch auditorium which has none and that I bought a projector for use with library programs (and I've already used it several times.) There's the boxes of Dungeons & Dragons books and materials (look them up they aren't cheap) that I bought especially for a weekly teen program and then left at the branch, which enabled the program to continue after I got transferred.
The commissioner should also know that I care about the county in the way I take my leave and the way that I am willing to work extra hours without being asked to and often without anyone knowing.
I schedule doctor's appointments on my day off or before work so I will not disrupt the branch schedule and so that other people will be able to take the time they need. The hundreds of hours of sick leave I will forfeit and receive not one dollar for when I am laid off can stand in silent witness to how much I value the library system and being there for the public.
When I had to have a surgery earlier this year I took my vacation hours instead of sick leave so that I could come back to work as soon as possible without having to produce a doctor's note. You see, I had the scars to prove the surgery so I was not avoiding the requirement for proof. Rather I was more than a little worried that my doctor might want to keep me off of work longer to recover than branch staffing levels would allow. With our summer programs starting I had to be back at my post no matter what.
Part 2 of 2
The decision to use vacation hours instead of sick will cost me hundreds and hundred of dollars come October and the layoffs. This was my contribution. I hadn't minded until today's insult of my colleague who risks workplace retaliation from an angry Commissioner for daring to question him.
Staff at any branch know that they could always interrupt my lunch if they were shorthanded or if they had a customer with a difficult problem. Most of the time, I never made that lunch time back. When I worked at a larger branch, a good number of my lunch hours came up short. I might easily stay finishing up with a patron with an unemployment application fifteen, twenty or more minutes into my lunch. On a goodly number of occasions I've done outreach to schools on my day off on my own initiative to promote partnerships. Some of this has been off the books. I never received credit. I have likewise even worked in the computer lab making a staff trainer manual and then visited a branch on my day off to provide computer training for some of the staff who couldn't leave their posts. Simply put, I cannot count the number of extra hours I have worked over the over six years that never got logged. I don't mind the county owing me time, but I am offended when a commissioner honestly believes that I don't care about the county.
We could all tell very similar stories. At least our public knows. Today, out of the blue a patron demanded a 'comment card' so I gave him a Patron Communication Form and he had nothing to write but praise for the extensive help we gave him today. I had to bite my tongue hard because I wanted to tell him to call his Commissioner since they're the ones who need to hear it.
For $50 you can get a guest library card in Broward.
I am glad that there is a forum like Eye On Miami that we can comment to and commissioners read. Its not the Herald, but more valuable.
Back to the Mayor. He was completely dismissive and disrespectful to the people at the Town Hall Meeting. Glad you posted the video, EOM.
Even if there is repetition the mayor is obligated to listen. He called the meeting after-all.
Why do so few people show up at these meetings? Duh! Because they're scheduled at 6:00 p.m. and people work for a living?? The arrogance of County government officials is stunning to behold, indeed. I'll be there tonight to ask a few pertinent questions, if I get the opportunity.ler
They become drunk with their own power.
It's 6:47 p.m. I left at 6:30 p.m. - Gimenez was "en route". Once again, the King shows his utter contempt for his subjects. Let them eat cake, by God!! There had to be over 250 people there. In the handout, there was no indication of how much of the tax dollar went towards satisfying debt. FYI:
For property-tax backed debt, the total outstanding debt is $1,189,921,000. That's 1.20 BILLION dollars. The principal repayment on that debt this year is $21,365,000 and the INTEREST payment on that debt is $53,742,090. In the documents handed out at the meeting, there is a chart entitled "Your Tax Dollar at Work". It lists .30 for public safety, .21 for Neighborhood and Infrastructure, .08 for General Government, .04 for Recreation and Culture, .23 for Transportation, .09 for Health and Human, .03 for Economic Development, and .01 for Policy/Administration. WHERE'S THE PORTION FOR DEBT REPAYMENT? And yes, I'M SHOUTING, since the arrogant assholes in County Hall seem to think that we are stupid peasants that shouldn't be minded.
Giménez is delusional. He has been for many years. But since he surrounds himself with "yes men and women" and pays them very high salaries, none of them are going to advise them that the "Emperor/Mayor isn't wearing any clothes"
As a former county employee I can attest to the fact that the charts shown at these budget meetings are bogus.
My former colleagues tell me that things have never been so bad at County Hall as they are now. The Mayor (strong mayor at that) and most of his Deputy Mayors are totally clueless. Alina Hudack keeps behaving exactly as she did during the Alvarez administration.
Don't you who are reading this, and all of the taxpayers living in Miami-Dade County realize that these sycophants are just biding their time until they can retire with annual retirement checks of over $100.000? And guess for how long they will receive these checks?
Until the day they die!
It is an amazing gig. And it will go on until we the taxpayers accept it.
I don't think a retired firefighters who are guaranteed millions in retirement should have to listen to citizens talk. Police union representatives should throw citizens out. Police and fire should give themselves 100% raises this year and every year after. Keep this budget meetings private.
Carlos Gimenez never pays attention to others. Worse, he does not honor his campaign promises. In the last campaign Gimenez promised "to enforce a zero tolerance policy against illegal LED billboards." Once he got elected he ignored his campaign promise.
Mayor Gimenez assumed the same smug,
complacent attitude at the Sept 3
hearing in Florida City. As Mayor, he has shown us his real persona; an
autocratic, visionless Phylistine,
a top down manager where the entire
Miami-Dade government works fearful
for their jobs if they do not toe his line. In what is supposed to be a non-partisan position, he is prosecuting the Republican platform;
no new taxes even if it means destroying important government institutions and services. His disrespect and disdain for the public shows that he does not deserve to be in that important position. Corruption is not the only negative attribute of our governments; isolation and insulation are just as bad and dangerous. We have a totalitarian
government. I cannot envision another three years of this; recall is sounding good. Who will step
up and lead this County out of decades of poor leadership?
At the last Town Hall Meeting , a library employee at the end of her rope, knowing that the last days of the library system are these last days of September, brought her three children and her story. This will be her second layoff with MDPLS in two years. The first round she lost her house, her car, and was forced to take shelter in a motel after everything was lost. She demanded to know why a heartless mayor undervalues libraries.
This video is the last portion of their dialog. The mayor came up with a solution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L25JcZeoSow&feature=em-upload_owner
Gimenez obviously has no respect or consideration for librarians or any other public employees. Ironic, considering he as a firefighter and his wife - teacher- spent their careers as public employees and collect their pensions accordingly. Perhaps they should both donate their pensions to the libraries, as they don't value them. Perhaps Gimenez should live on the average salary, maybe take the bus to work, scramble to find affordable child care, be forced to visit a food bank, go without medical care.
Your link doesn't work
I want to thank everyone who took time to thoughtfully explain how the county library system is funded. My question for the Mayor is, why couldn't you do the same and show some real leadership? An average 20.00 per taxable property to know those who need or want access to the services a library offers is chump change. Shame on the Mayor and the BCC.
Throw ALL the bums out.
I don't see anything wrong with what he said. I live in Miami Beach and have the same feeling. The ones that complain constantly etc make up a tiny fraction of the actual residents. I applaud them for being active etc. I honestly haven't researched the matter much but lets face it libraries are a thing of the past. I don't know anyone that goes to them. I've been maybe twice since I lived in Miami Beach. I don't care for politicians but I can appreciate him being blunt.
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