What is wrong with the City of Miami? When did citizens start becoming enemies of the state? ... by gimleteye

Former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives Dick Pettigrew writes an OPED in the Miami Herald today, concerning the way in which city government appears to have institutionalized secrecy; thwarting people from having access to information related to complex development schemes that, in effect, allow developers, their lobbyists and engineering consultants to sit in the same room with agency staff far, far from the sunshine that government is supposed to provide.

How did this happen? And is it worse today than it has been in the past?

As a civic activist for over twenty five years, I don't recall any golden era of open government in Florida. From my first dealings with the South Florida Water Management District and state agencies like the Florida Department of Environmental Protection or of Community Affairs, I understood from staff positioning on public information or details on permitting, that in their view the citizen is the enemy.

How this works is on display every time citizens go to County Hall or the City Commission to protest a zoning approval. The developers and their representatives are chummy on the sidelines with regulators while citizens in the audience are on the defensive. Before they even get to the microphone to speak to elected officials on the dais, they are already victims of "due process".

Tragically, as Pettigrew notes, the courts are not much help. The judicial system should provide the fabled check and balance, but -- as Pettigrew also notes -- the expense of keeping up with judicial processes is most times more than ordinary citizens can bear.

At Eye On Miami, we witnessed the relationship between government and citizens take a nose-dive when local freedom of information requests began to be accompanied with outrageously high bills for copying documents. It was as if to say to the inquisitive, "fuck you".

The insider deal for the Marlins Stadium, after the Miami Heat Arena and the Performing Arsht Center, was a watershed event in the suppression of open government in Miami. For the Marlins Stadium, there were so many false pretenses and lies used by the City of Miami and the County, together, that insiders -- especially those with a conscience -- thought to themselves, "if we can invent an economic argument that sounds reasonable, we can get anything done." To leaders of that era, these are credentials not black marks on their personal histories.

In state government, Gov. Rick Scott raised the secrecy bar to unattainable heights. And in the federal arena, the continuous war against terror has been a de facto surrendering of privacy in favor of government secrecy. There is no question that local elected officials are influenced by the atmospherics of secrecy from above.

I don't yearn for a past golden era of open government in Florida, because there was none. What exists today, though, does feel qualitatively different. Some insiders gloat, "Miami has grown up as a major American city". Too bad it has grown into a bully; insulted from criticism and hardened against reform.

Op-Ed
May 28, 2015

City keeps development deals a secret
MIAMI HERALD
BY RICHARD PETTIGREW
rapettig@aol.com

Almost 50 years ago, changes to Florida’s Constitution and laws guaranteed access to public meetings and records, assuring residents the right to know what their government is doing. These reforms were enacted to counter widespread corruption and set a new standard for “sunshine” in state and local government.

Sadly, in today’s city of Miami a small group of officials is aggressively working to keep the public in the dark, employing a cloak of secrecy to advance controversial deals.


That’s why there has been an avalanche of lawsuits against Miami in the past few years. Thanks to news reports in the Herald and elsewhere and available court documents, a disturbing pattern is clear — a pattern designed to keep the public’s eyes off how the government makes decisions on projects worth millions to a few, and a more congested, less desirable community for the rest of us.

Here’s what these current cases reveal about the city’s behavior:

▪ Violating public records laws by failing to provide key documents to the public until after making critical decisions.

▪ Forcing citizens to obtain a court order at their own expense, and even then not fulfilling requests and ignoring court orders when the documents proved inconsistent with city desires. One judge recently ordered the city to show cause why it should not be held in contempt.

▪ Blocking officials from being deposed until ordered by a court.

▪ Manipulating appraisals and traffic studies to hide massive subsidies to developers and inevitable gridlock scenarios from the public.

▪ Misrepresenting facts to alter the outcome of decisions — blatant violations of the County Citizen’s Bill of Rights.

▪ Manipulating city approvals, for instance by labeling major changes as “minor modifications” and intimidating city staff into going against their professional opinions and values, even when the staff knows the action is wrong.

The implications of this behavior are clear: Commission decisions are made while information is deliberately withheld until after their votes. Citizens are discouraged because of the enormous costs to battle the city’s army of lawyers protecting officials’ pet projects, wasting taxpayer funds by forcing everything into court. What is the city hiding?

When challenged with that question, city lawyers resort to fighting the right of the citizen to get his or her day in court. It’s called “standing.” Our “government” is forcing its residents to spend hundreds of thousands of their own dollars in hopes they’ll go broke or go away before their cases get heard — a position that would negate 100 years of precedent to the contrary.

What’s the alternative to the citizen’s right to challenge in court? City lawyers answer with an almost Alice in Wonderland piece of legal make-believe: First, they argue that only the state attorney general can enforce the city charter, an argument for which there is no precedent. Second, they argue that only an “appropriate city official” can force a trial on the city’s own behavior, assigning the fox watch the proverbial hen house.

How ridiculous is that? Dangerously ridiculous when you consider, for example, the city attorney herself is appointed by the City Commission, not the city manager or mayor.

The city also claims that elections are the public’s recourse. This argument is without merit. First, it’s impossible to obtain the full scope of illegal behavior without city staff testimony under oath. Second, the impacts of these decisions are sometimes not felt for years, long after elections are held and those misbehaving elected officials have moved on. And third, as a former chairman of the Dade County Democratic Party, I and my Republican counterparts know full well that even timely elections are badly skewed by the massive amounts of money incumbents raise from the private interests who benefit from their decisions, making successful challenges a practical nonstarter.

Finally, the city raises the “horror” that the courts will be inundated; an insult to the constitutional separation of powers, our fundamental system of checks and balances.

The best way to break open the crust of secrecy is through the judiciary. Consequently, I am distressed to read that some circuit judges have accepted the city’s draconian arguments. We must now rely on the appellate courts to take a position on standing that supports the state policy on open records and the state constitutional guarantee that for every wrong there shall be a viable remedy.

Richard Pettigrew served as speaker of the Florida House of Representatives (1970-72), and was a member of the Florida Senate, representing Dade County.