County Commissioner Pepe Diaz, on the loose in the Florida Keys... by gimleteye

Eyeonmiami began reporting on the strange case of Pepe Diaz in the Florida Keys; specifically his role in a Key Largo trailer park called Calusa Campground. Diaz, with the help of prominent Miami attorney Santiago Echemendia, successfully lobbied to change the Monroe County planning code to convert campgrounds for motor homes into sites vested with the right to build a permanent home. This had an instant effect of creating property rights at Calusa Campground that never previously existed. It was a move that generated big controversy in the Keys.Since the mid-1980's there has been an mandate in place to limit development and building rates-- to protect fragile natural resources and the Keys from being overrun by population impacts and to ensure hurricane evacuation routes are not overwhelmed in a crisis. ROGO, as it is known, has plenty of loopholes. Still, securing new home building sites a burdensome, difficult process for property owners unless, now, you own a trailer park site.

Although he was only one of scores of homeowners at Calusa, Pepe brought his influence on the Miami-Dade County Commission--to the controversy. As the Monroe County Commission reviewed the change in a series of public and very acrimonious hearings, at least some of the commissioners did not even know the person angrily testifying and in the face of opponents was a county commissioner in Miami-Dade.

While Pepe's apparent invisibility was of interest to Eyeonmiami (worth noting that Pepe's biggest supporter on the Monroe County Commission, Marathon commissioner DiGennaro, also had interest in a mobile home park in Homestead, adjacent to public infrastructure), what called attention to this story was the fact that Diaz, in Miami-Dade, has been a strong opponent and critic of community groups and environmentalists organized against moving the Urban Development Boundary, as part of the movement to Hold The Line.

Another point of interest is how important positions in the Florida Keys government structure is filled with former Miami-Dade county employees, including Peter Horton at the airport authority and Roman Gastesi, former Miami-Dade water czar and then lobbyist, as county manager.

Also, Diaz turns out to be hot-tempered to the point of starting fights as he takes over the Calusa Campground development project, even after the approval of the zoning change. "The disagreement almost became violent during a condo association meeting on Sunday, May 16 with a crowd of more than 100 Calusa owners in the community’s clubhouse. The meeting was to discuss architectural and aesthetic standards for the permanent structures, and improvements to the park’s pool that must be approved by the owners. But most of the three hours were dominated by intense arguments and near-fist fights, including one where Diaz charged toward board members and was pulled out of the room by his supporters."

Joe Gallardo, one of the biggest owners of individual lots at Calusa Campground, was thrown off the five person board last year. In his view, Diaz is making a whole host of enemies at Calusa with his attack-style and manipulation. "Half an hour after the election that got me off the board, Pepe was in the new board member’s home drinking whisky and smoking a cigar." Another observer says, "It's all about what is in it for Pepe: he is a “I” guy and not a “we” guy. He’s a control guy. How do you get all these county officials at 9:30 in the morning, and Santiago Echemendia to go there for free: what’s in it for him?" According to this source, Diaz is chair of the development committee and as trailers are converted to individual homes, he is trying to ensure that only selected contractors are authorized by homeowners.

"He doesn’t let anyone else talk or present anything," concludes one long-time Calusa member. Quite an interesting view on a county commissioner from Florida's most populous county who has indignantly addressed critics from the dais in Miami-Dade, that "I represent the people." (Please click, 'read more')


Redevelopment effort causing a rift at Calusa
BY ROBERT SILK Free Press Staff
rsilk@keysnews.com
KEY LARGO -- A rift within Calusa Campground came close to erupting at a meeting of the community's board earlier this month.

The 387-lot mile marker 101.5 park entered into a development agreement with Monroe County last year that will enable owners to clear out their recreational vehicles and build permanent homes.

To set the stage for the new construction, a park planning and zoning committee developed a set of architectural and aesthetic guidelines.

But attendees at the Calusa condo association meeting on May 16 say the proceedings got especially heated when a committee member squared off against the five-member Calusa board about the board's plan to hire a Key West planning consultant to review those guidelines.

Jose "Pepe" Diaz is a Miami-Dade County commissioner who owns a lot at Calusa. Board members told the Free Press that while arguing angrily against the board's plan to hire planning consultant The Craig Company at $185 per hour, Diaz lost his temper. He began to approach the dais but was restrained.

"I never felt threatened," said Calusa board member Joe Gallardo. "There were too many women holding him back."

Added Calusa President Manny Lopez, "I did see him approach the dais and being restrained by other residents. I never felt threatened."

Diaz did not return phone calls from the Free Press.

The fireworks at the May 16 meeting may have been the most public salvo, but they were far from the beginning of tensions at Calusa, where the redevelopment guidelines as well as a renovation of the swimming pool are dividing the community.

Diaz is part of an effort spearheaded by lot owner Jacobo Gonzalez to recall the board. Gonzalez says his main grievance is that the board is spending too much money.

He expects the pool renovation to cost more than $300,000, (thus far a $159,000 contract has been awarded for a portion of the project) and in this economy many of the campground's largely Miami-based owners don't have extra money lying around.

He also says the board managed to use the law to find a way to avoid competitive elections over the winter. He says 150 lot owners have signed the recall form.

"There is a lot of power they have that is being misused," Gonzalez told the Free Press in reference to the board. "They are using that power to benefit themselves."

Lopez, though, calls the recall effort the work of a "few disgruntled owners."

Though all five board members retained their seats without opposition, the board president contends that elections were properly advertised and nobody else applied to run.

Gallardo, meanwhile, accuses Diaz of trying to gain control of the redevelopment process so that work might be steered to his associates.

"He is trying to manipulate the system and control the whole thing," Gallardo said, "He doesn't want outside people coming in."

Gallardo also says it struck him as odd that Monroe County Administrator Roman Gastesi along with county Growth Management Director Christine Hurley and Principal Planner Joe Haberman attended the Sunday morning condo association meeting.

Gastesi said he was there at the request of Diaz, who is a friend of his from his days working for Miami-Dade County. But he said he and his staff attended in order to answer questions about the redevelopment agreement, which is a major one by Monroe County standards.

"We answered a few questions and we left," Gastesi said.

Gallardo speculated that Diaz invited Gastesi as a demonstration of influence.

"The truth is, as we see it, he had a recall out there and he wanted to show power," Gallardo said.

Gonzalez, though, said emotions boiled over at the board meeting because it is operating unchecked.

"We have issues with the board and they are trying to do things that we don't want them to do. So, yeah, we are edgy," he said.

Dade politician battles Key Largo condo board
Diaz decides to back effort to recall board
By David Goodhue
dgoodhue@keysreporter.com
Posted - Friday, May 21, 2010 12:42 PM EDT
A Miami-Dade county commissioner is making waves at a Key Largo condo community in a movement to replace the co-op’s board of directors.

Jose “Pepe” Diaz, vice chairman of the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners, didn’t plan to join the effort to recall the board of the Calusa Camp Resort. But he was forced to, he said, because the five-member board is making decisions opposed by many of the condo association’s more than 380 members.

Calusa’s board members say the recall effort is a way Diaz can install friends from Miami to take control as the community goes ahead with plans to replace RVs and trailers with permanent homes.

“He wants to manipulate these people and take control, but we won’t let him,” board member Joe Gallardo said.

The conflict between Diaz and the board is relatively recent. Diaz was influential, using his political experience to help Calusa, located at mile marker 101.5, to win a zoning change from Monroe County last year, which paved the way for pending redevelopment.

But since then, the relationship has steadily deteriorated.

Intense arguments

The disagreement almost became violent during a condo association meeting on Sunday, May 16 with a crowd of more than 100 Calusa owners in the community’s clubhouse. The meeting was to discuss architectural and aesthetic standards for the permanent structures, and improvements to the park’s pool that must be approved by the owners.

But most of the three hours were dominated by intense arguments and near-fist fights, including one where Diaz charged toward board members and was pulled out of the room by his supporters.

Diaz was also angry that a reporter was at the meeting, which he said was private. Monroe County Administrator Roman Gastesi and two members of his staff were there at Diaz’ invitation.

Tension between Diaz and the board grew throughout the meeting.. Diaz spent about half an hour describing housing styles owners could choose, all in some type of “Caribbean” or “Key West” style.

But an argument quickly erupted between the board, audience and Diaz when board members said they wanted to hire a Key West company led by planning consultant Don Craig, which charges $185 an hour, to review the development plan.

Diaz maintains the plan passed muster when the Monroe County Commission approved the zoning change for the recreational vehicle resort to allow permanent structures last year. The attorneys representing the board of directors — Santiago Echemendia of Tew Cardenas and David Rogel of Becker & Poliakoff — said at the meeting that the community should hire a planning consultant to look at the plan.

Diaz was on a committee that decided many of the plan’s architectural and aesthetic standards. He said hiring Craig’s firm would duplicate work the committee did in collaborating with Gastesi and county planners, and would be a financial drain for many residents especially hard hit by the recession.

“In the last minute you bring in a planner at $185 an hour when you have people here who can’t pay their association fees,” he said.

Board members said they want Craig to make sure the plan will stand up to legal challenges. Diaz called the decision another example of the board making arbitrary decisions without consulting owners. After a heated exchange in both English and Spanish, Diaz announced he would join the recall effort that began about two months ago with a petition.

Joining recall effort

“I’m making it public right now, I’m fully part of the recall,” Diaz yelled toward the board.

Board member Milton Martinez yelled back, “Well, we already knew that.”

That began more arguments between Diaz and the board, and between members of the crowd. It culminated with Diaz running toward the dais and several members of the crowd holding onto him and leading him out of the meeting. He did not return.

Board members accuse Diaz of starting the recall petition. Diaz said in an interview that he only pointed owners in the right direction on procedure for recalling the board. He insisted his decision was not solidified until the meeting.

“There’s a lot at stake here, and we’re fed up,” he said.

The chaotic nature of the meeting made determining who supported which side difficult. When asked, several owners said that they agree with Diaz that board members are making decisions without thinking of the best interest of the community.

“Their agenda is to do whatever they want regardless of the cost or the will of the association,” Jacob Gonzales said. “We have no rights anymore.”

rsilk@keysnews.com

Dear Michelle Obama, when you meet Miami Dade Commissioner Jose Pepe Diaz, for the children ... by gimleteye

Dear Michelle Obama,

As First Lady, you have taken a keen interest in the development of children in safe, healthy environments. On June 24, you will be meeting with Miami-Dade County Commissioner Pepe Diaz among others to discuss the plight of children whose parents have been deported as a result of immigration law. Without diminishing this issue, we would like to draw your attention to the real costs to children separated by parents right here, every day.

The issue isn't deportation, but the separation of wage earners from their children because of poorly planned suburban sprawl. Miami is representative, in this respect, of cities throughout the United States where illogical development patterns separate children from parents during the most important hours of their day. Commuting to downtown places of work on clogged highways keeps mothers and fathers stuck in traffic for hundreds of hours a year, if not more.

This problem does not begin with transportation policies. It starts with local zoning decisions that allow sprawling suburbs to grow like cancers-- albeit very profitable ones to campaign contributors from land speculators and developers.

To county commissioners like Pepe Diaz these zoning decisions are the mother's milk of local politics. The costs also includes historic Everglades and farmland that become political bargaining chips for local decision makers.

The truth is: zoning decisions that advance the political fortunes of insiders and the fortunes of developers inflict an insidious price on children: inadequate schools, badly planned infrastructure, all shift the true cost of sprawl on families.

So when Pepe Diaz is explaining how unfair immigration law is to children, please raise the issue of children who are separated from parents by illogical zoning decisions that proliferate sprawl. These real costs are inflicted on US citizens and their families by local elected officials, whose eagerness to please political insiders substantially contributed, too, to the vast oversupply of "cheap" housing far from places of work. This economic crisis wraps up Wall Street corruption with the miscalculations of risk that pass for sober policy in land use zoning.

Ask Pepe Diaz to stand up for sensible, sound development that supports compact cities and not the fortunes of land speculators and "environmental land use lawyers" who fund his political campaigns. Ask Pepe Diaz to help the children.

Would you please raise these issues in your conversation with Commissioner Diaz on June 24th who is running unopposed in his district because no one knows how to make representative democracy at the local level work, since campaign cash is dominated by special interests who need those very zoning decisions that penalize so many children born in America.

We will encourage our readers to communicate these talking points for your meeting with Pepe Diaz, for the children.

Sincerely,

Your Friends at Eyeonmiami

Calusa Campground: Miami Dade County Commissioner Pepe Diaz gets his day before the county commission... by gimleteye

Tomorrow, Pepe Diaz has his day before the county commission. The Monroe County Commission. Therein hangs a tale.
The Florida Keys have always been a playground for Miami politicians; mostly under the sign of "what goes on in the Keys, stays in the Keys." Why not? The Keys are a place to cut loose (Joe Gersten), to speculate in property, or just let one's hair down. Things began changing during the real estate boom in the mid-1990’s. Suddenly it no longer seemed a developer's dream that Key Largo could be a bedroom community serving sprawling Miami-Dade.

There was the Homestead Air Force Base fiasco, that advertised proximity to the Keys as a drawing point for $10 billion of economic impacts. Lennar attempted to snuggle permits for a small city of 12,000 outside the Urban Development Boundary, a stone's throw from the Monroe County line, called Florida City Commons. Miami-Dade commissioners, like Pepe Diaz, couldn't vote the development forward fast enough, but it foundered in the housing market crash. And road widening, everywhere, including the 18 Mile Stretch.

Ask a resident of the Keys what they think about being married to Miami, and most will shake their heads, no. The people of the Keys treasure their Conch Republic just the way it is.

Jose Pepe Diaz is a charter member, as Eyeonmiami likes to say, of the unreformable majority of the Miami-Dade County Commission that uses zoning decisions for big developers and land speculators to guarantee permanent incumbency. Diaz owns at least one lot in a former trailer park, now condominium association in Key Largo, called Calusa Campground. As a “zoning council member” for the association he claims to have spent four years in the effort to obtain a development agreement with Monroe County. That agreement, subject of tomorrow's hearing, will ostensibly remove the source of hundreds of code violations and a legacy of bad relations with the county. Its collateral effect will, also, vest all 367 units of the 28 acre facility with the right to convert an RV lot into a transient, single-family residence.

To get a sense of this odd disproportion of interest, as a county commissioner, consider that: in 2007, Monroe County's budget was $373.1 million. Miami-Dade's was $7.3 billion.

Local zoning is the mother’s milk of Florida politics. Its utility in cementing incumbency is a core value for Diaz and his colleagues in Miami-Dade. Consider this example: Diaz has been the driving force on the Miami-Dade County Commission to move the Urban Development Boundary closer to the Everglades to accommodate a new Lowe’s Home Improvement Store. (A state court recently supported the state of Forida and intervenors and rejected the county's approval.) The Lowe's application that was vehemently opposed by citizens tired of the costs of sprawl; on families, on the Everglades, and the inevitable distortion of democracy that send concerned citizens to court to battle their own government.

The Lowe’s application was not only about providing a nearby hardware outlet for locals who didn’t want to get in their car to drive to Home Depot a few miles a way, or a charter school for needy students. It was also about using families to agitate for more growth and services to constantly expand development into "low cost" wetlands.

The May 20th meeting of the Monroe County Commission invites comparison. There was Pepe, on the other side of the dais, surrounded by local citizens dressed in white T-shirts as a “show of support”.

At least one Monroe County Commissioner was unaware that the Miami law firm and lobbyist, Tew Cardenas, the commission recently hired on behalf of the county was also representing Calusa Campground. (Mario DiGennaro, Diaz’ ally on the Monroe County Commission, owns a trailer park in Homestead, Florida, purchased through the New Aquarius Corporation.)

Al Cardenas, founding partner, is a top general in the Bush political dynasty: he was a Bush Pioneer, former chairman of the Florida Republican Party, and among other benefits that association conferred, his firm was designated “outside counsel” to the South Florida Water Management District. The former Miami-Dade water czar Roman Gastesi who is now Monroe County manager is a former Tew Cardenas lobbyist.

On its website, Calusa Campground offers: “An island paradise situated at the gateway to the Florida Keys at mile marker 101, near John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, the Calusa Campground Resort and Marina offers gated, bayfront resort community living for sale or vacation in luxurious RV condominiums surrounding a beautiful marina with direct access to the Atlantic Ocean via Marvin Adams Cut.”

But this island paradise has been engulfed, for years, in hundreds of code violations, citations, law enforcement actions and a legal battle that is costing neighbors hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The development agreement depends on a contested easement. The property Calusa Campground uses as an entrance and exit is under separate ownership. But there are other issues as well: long-time neighbors who value privacy are alarmed at the party-atmosphere of Calusa on weekends, dangerous boat traffic, and especially, the suspicion that the 367 owners will use a secondary road as a reliever for cars, boat trailers, trucks, and RV’s. In addition to code violations, there is also violation of US Army Corps regulations in the construction of illegal boat docks along an adjacent canal.

“I’m not going to let my house and two children fall victim to weekend parties, trash and garbage everywhere and a high volume of traffic,” said Harbor Drive resident Kelli Cuppett to the Key Largo Free Press (Calusa redevelopment hung up by access issues”, March 25, 2009) A local judge recently ruled in favor of Calusa’s claim to an historic easement. But it is not just the easement that is a problem for local neighbors.

Local neighbors are determined that the only other ingress and egress—through their small homeowner’s association—is not used as a release valve for whatever is coming to Calusa. So what is coming to Calusa? A trailer park seems small stuff, hardly worth the involvement of Tew Cardenas. And Tew Cardenas has been pushing its legal weight around, plenty, dividing neighbors and seeking to impose a cone of silence. For some reason, publicity on the Calusa Campground issue has struck a raw nerve. A dead silence has descended over the controvery, leading to tmoorrow’s hearing.

On May 20th, Pepe Diaz addressed the Monroe County Commission: “I understand the frustration of residents of Keys. I respect you want to keep a certain lifestyle. That’s why we come here. We love it. I understand. Everyone is passionate and everyone has their way of being. We’re here to work with staff. This is positive in every nature. … This is balanced and this gives a straight normality to a system that has been all over the place. Your frustration is our frustration. What is right and what is wrong. We just want to have our weekend and some more days here or there, that’s what we want to do, maybe later on life I can do that.”

It is hard to know what Pepe wants, because the public experience in Miami-Dade is that when Pepe has a zoning ordinance he is promoting, as in the case of Lowe’s, there is always another angle.

Then, too, there is the question of sincerity. “I will tell you that our intent has always been honorable and respectful to this community and will continue to be,” Diaz told the Monroe County Commission. Only a few minutes later, in the parking lot outside, Diaz confronted the property owner at the heart of the easement controversy, Albert Vigil, and called him “an extorionist and a racist.” Never mind, that Vigil—like Diaz—is Cuban American.

Vigil, who owns the property used for access by Calusa Campground, has spent more than a hundred thousand in legal fees on the issue of whether Calusa Campground has a legal easement to his property. He alleges that Diaz and insiders are spreading their own legal fees among condominium association owners while at the same time buying units as the come to sale. The association has spent more than $5 million on sewer and water upgrades to resolve longstanding code vilations. “As a share comes up for sale, they are supposed to offer it to everyone. Since the board is notified, only, of any foreclosure action, they (the board) are gobbling everything up.”

Vigil and a partner purchased their property for $250,000 and have offered it to Calusa for $1.2 million.

On April 23, 2004 Pepe Diaz paid $205,000 for a unit in Calusa Campground. (It is listed in Monroe County records at 1500 square feet and assessed at $292,164.) 2004 was the same year that Diaz “received $20,000 … from what federal prosecutors describe as a shell company used to conceal fraudulent proceeds from a hospital kickback scheme.” ('Naked Politics', Miami Herald, July 24, 2008) Diaz listed the funds on his public disclosure form from a medical supplier, Kaufman Medical Products. He later told the Herald it was “a bonus for work performed for the Astri Group”, owned by Carlos and Jorge de Cespedes. In a statement of income filed with Miami-Dade County in 2003, Diaz reported primary income of $78,000 from the Astri Group.” Documents listed his title as Director of Corporate Affairs for the Astri Group. (“Pepe Diaz Cancun Visit is Probed”, Miami Herald, June 10, 2006).http://www.redorbit.com/news/business/533817/pepe_diazs_cancun_visit_is_probed/index.html
The de Cespedes, who are now serving time in federal prison, also co-signed documents for Diaz’ condo unit at Calusa Campground.

A federal investigation was examining the relationship between the ultimate zoning lobbyist and developer, Sergio Pino, Carlos De Cespedes, and Diaz, who had taken a “fishing trip” to Cancun aboard Pino's private jet during a period when the Miami Dade county commission was considering a development approval for Pino project called Grand Bay Entities. Pino, a prominent campaign fund raiser in Miami Dade county commission races, was also in 2004 a Bush Ranger. No charges were filed.

A recent article in the Florida Keynoter reported: “After a long week at work, Miami-Dade Commisioner Jose Diaz likes to escape to Key Largo for a weekend of fishing and relaxation. His destination: Calusa Campground… Last Wednesday, the Monroe County Planning Commission said the RV site owners at Calusa Campground and other Keys RV parks can build vacation homes on their RV pads—and they can do so without waiting in line for building allocations in accordance with the county’s rate-of-ordinance, known as ROGO.” (3/30/2009)

At the end of the day, tomorrow, the main value of the development agreement may be to secure the rights to build a single family home, designated transient, on each of Calusa’s 367 lots. The Rate of Growth Ordinance (ROGO) is a unique aspect of local law in Florida. It is meant to create scarcity, in terms of building units, in order to protect a reasonable time for hurricane evacuation out of the Keys.

Looking at Keys real estate today, and the massive oversupply out of the housing boom, it is hard to say that ROGO, first implemented in 1992, did much good by limiting the vast overdevelopment of the Keys. The fact remains, ROGO units are not easy to come by. There is a complex point and tier system that is meant to fairly allocate growth but also provides opportunity for lawyering and lobbying. Wherever scarcity meets politics there is opportunity to make a lot of money.

In the case of Calusa, it is possible that the owners of ROGO units could trade or sell them for a right to construct similarly zoned property, or affordable housing, somewhere else in the Keys. The value of those ROGO rights could be worth millions, or, very little. But many paid as little as $35,000 for an individual lot at Calusa.

It certainly wasn’t planned that way. Up the Florida coast at Briny Breezes, at around the time Diaz became involved in Calusa Campground, a development group offered to pay trailer owners $510 million to owners of each of 488 trailers on 42 acres fronting the Atlantic. The news turned trailer park owners into instant millionaires.

Today, the Keys are sinking under the weight of for sale signs. By August 2007, the deal for Briny Breezes collapsed; a victim of the housing bust. It is hard to know whether units at Calusa purchased in the froth of the housing boom, like Diaz’, retain anything near their assessed value. It is a question millions of Florida homeowners are asking themselves every day.

Some kind of consolidation, separation, and transfer of ROGO units to affordable housing seem to be the play for trailer parks in the Florida Keys. Perhaps Calusa Campground is the model for a grand development that will wrap up scarcity and opportunity in a way that only works when “local control” is secured by powerful lobbyists. The only thing certain about the controversy at Calusa Campground is that legal costs for all parties total hundreds of thousands of dollars. Neighbors, contesting illegal boat docks whose permits cost only a few hundred dollars, have spent tens of thousands in court.

Whatever happens at the Monroe County Commission tomorrow, the Calusa Campground story is not over by a long shot.

What does Pepe Diaz have against Albert Vigil? ... by gimleteye

It was quite a moment in the parking lot, when Citizen Pepe Diaz called Albert Vigil a racist. The moment was in Marathon, after a zoning meeting of the Monroe County Board of County Commissioners on May 20th. A 3-2 majority of the county commission had just voted against something that Pepe Diaz and Calusa Campground's attorney, Tew Cardenas and Santiago Echemendia, really wanted: a zoning change for the condominium association where Pepe owns at least one lot. There are rumors that straw buyers have been buying up lots in Calusa for the past couple of years. In the photo above, Calusa is what you see sticking into Florida Bay. The zoning change would upzone the 367 RV park, filled with hundreds of code violations including trailers converted to immoveable residences, to a Destination Resort classification.

In Miami-Dade County, where Pepe Diaz is a county commissioner, I've seen the race card played time and again by developers who accuse opponents of not sharing whatever Cuban-American values their applications seem to be steeped in. And I've seen county commissioners do it too. (Natacha Seijas) The problem with Albert Vigil is that he is also Cuban American. Oops.

So what does Pepe Diaz have against Albert Vigil? (Please click, read more.)

RV sites. Trailer parks. Mobile homes. Whatever name you call them, they have been an integral feature of low cost housing and temporary destinations in the Florida Keys, for decades. The conversion of these "campgrounds" in the Keys was the last play of the real estate boom. It is still the play, in the case of Calusa Campground.

The problem for Calusa Campground is that the condominium association does not own the road connecting to US 1. That property is owned by Albert Vigil, a Keys' businessman who has been locked in a multi-year fight over the legal question, whether or not there is an easement right for Calusa to US 1. Vigil has been willing to sell the property to Diaz et al., but Diaz et al. have been unwilling to meet his price, originally over $1 million. Last week, a Monroe County judge ruled in favor of Calusa, removing an obstacle to the Monroe County Commission approval of the zoning change sought by Calusa.

When and if the zoning change occurs, the owners of teeny lots will have the right to build a single-family home or trade that right as the case may be. How could a county commission allow 367 homes to be built on a parcel (Calusa) that is scarcely 20 acres? Maybe that is not what Pepe Diaz and his investors want to build. So, what is the end game? I'll write more on this, later.

On political corruption, blind Retrievers and the Miami Herald by gimleteye

The Sunday Miami Herald, “Land in probe has big-name ties”, will send waves of irritation through Miami’s development community. The report links prominent developers and business partners Armando Codina and Sergio Pino in a Doral land deal under scrutiny by the federal grand jury investigation of county commissioner Pepe Diaz.

A year ago, Codina sold the main part of his real estate business to Florida East Coast Industries, Inc. in a complicated transaction valued at over $100 million. Today, Codina is the lead director on the Board of Directors of AMR (American Airlines), a director of General Motors, and other major corporations. He is President and CEO of Flagler Development Company and the Codina Group.

Pino is the founder of several businesses connected through “Century”, including a plumbing supply company, U.S. Century Bank and Century Builders. As a lobbyist for his own and other interests, he is one of the main stanchions of support for the majority of the Miami Dade County Commission.

The question, though we can guess the answer, is why Pepe Diaz, a county commissioner with a background in law enforcement, believed he did nothing wrong by accepting a free vacation and private jet flight on Pino’s plane to Mexico shortly after Diaz voted on a zoning change in his district that was worth tens of millions of dollars to his host?


From the county commissioner point of view, all Diaz has done is to facilitate what is good for his district, zoning to expand tax base through development on vacant land.

Zoning of property exists to be altered. It is not fixed in stone, like the Ten Commandments. The Eleventh Commandment, apparently: what happens in Cancun, stays in Cancun.

To recount from yesterday’s Herald report: early in 2003, Commissioner Diaz helped Flagler Property—which Codina was not involved with at the time--zone the Doral property to industrial use.

In December of the same year, Pino purchased the 465 acre property for $80 million. According to the Herald, Pino “subdivided his portion and sold part of it to an investment group, that includes himself, for $152 million.” It is kind of like buying two lots, selling one off and getting the other for free.

Re-zoning is big business.

For instance, Codina is pressuring the county commission to re-zone his 465 acre Beacon Lakes project—a development once outside the Urban Development Boundary now zoned industrial. Part of Codina’s argument to persuade the county commission to move the urban development boundary in 2001 was that his project would not include polluting industries since it is adjacent to county wellfield protection zone: at the time he argued that he would not ask for other zoning which would be potentially more harmful.

So in this context—with the building boom minting centi-millionaires—why would Pepe Diaz think he’d done anything wrong is supporting the re-zoning of property he had already encouraged for one kind of development into an “environmentally friendly”, “traditional neighborhood design”, a plan he had praised as “something of beauty” in the zoning hearing by the county commission.

From Pino and Codina’s point of view, all they are trying to do is create more value, by up-zoning large tracts of land when there is a scarcity of land in the first place.

The federal grand jury of Diaz is seeking a subpoena of “all records related to the property, and records of any occasions when Commissioner Diaz, who championed the rezoning effort, recused himself from matters pending before the commission.”

This seems to be the nub: should Pepe Diaz have recused himself from any decisions regarding the property?

As far as Natacha Seijas is concerned, there is no reason to recuse. Seijas was indignant—positively indignant!—in 2005 when the suggestion was made that her ally, Barbara Jordan, should recuse herself from a zoning decision involving the annexation by Florida City for a Lennar development project that would have eventually entailed a vote to move the Urban Development Boundary, represented by her sister, Sandy Walker, on the one hand, and her brother, Otis Wallace, on the other, the mayor of Florida City.

In the order that prevails at the county commission, the people who need to recuse themselves from involvement in zoning matters are citizens.

Citizens who have concerns that might override zoning decisions in favor of developers: schools, traffic, infrastructure coss, the environment, are simply out of order.

That’s what Natacha Seijas, the de facto county commission chair, means when she commands citizens to show “respect”: what she really means is, obey our order.

The response of Seijas—strongly supported by Pepe Diaz—to the citizen’s campaign to recall her was to punish any future effort to petition the people’s government by raising false signatures to a criminal offense and the threshold for signature gathering to a level that virtually assures there will never be a recall effort of an incumbent commissioner, again.

In this world order, why wouldn't Pepe Diaz climb aboard the private jet at Tamiami or Opalocka Airport without a care in the world?

There is no problem with the environment: that’s something that laws and regulations protect (of course, Seijas and Diaz both supported the elimination of public hearings for zoning requests by rock miners, whose activities have put carcinogens in the drinking water aquifer serving 2.3 million Miami-Dade County residents.)

Looking at it from Diaz’ point of view, taking a vacation with friends in the Caribbean was a lot less than what Joe Martinez did, then chair of the county commission, in 2003 with a sales contract for a piece of land sold by a politically influential developer that didn’t close until January 2005.

In December 2005, the Miami Herald reported that earlier in the year, then-county commission chair Martinez put down 1 percent to purchase vacant land from Caribe Homes, owned by then president of the Latin Builders Association, Charlie Martinez, at $8 per square foot when comparable land, 18 months later, was selling for $16 per square foot.

In its multi-decade history, it was only the second time that Caribe Homes sold vacant land to a private person.

According to the Herald, Charlie Martinez was initially “very skittish” about the deal. “At issue is a handful of votes Joe Martinez made during the months he was under conract for Caribe Homes—votes that helped create special taxing districts for Caribe developments, incluing the one for which he was buying property. During that 18-month window maybe he should not have been voting on anything on Caribe,” Myers told the Herald.”

In March 2006, the Miami Herald turned up another Joe Martinez story: that the Miami Dade Ethics Commission, headed by Robert Myers, gave Martinez the go-ahead to accept free services from a Latin Builder Association board member in drywalling his 5300 square foot West Dade home and getting free help lining up subcontractors, obtaining quotes and doing the kinds of things that people pay general contractors thousands of dollars to handle.

Ana Menendez, Herald columnist, wrote, “The political class long ago decamped to an alternate ethical reality, a kind of Circus Abamoff where perceptions and moral dilemmas are something to be managed.”

The ethics commission hunts down public corruption as effectively as a 15 year old Labrador with cataracts chases tennis balls: it knows it’s there but has no idea which way to find it.

So in other words, there is no problem. That is what Codina will say. That is what Pino will say. That is what Diaz will say. That is what Natacha will say (but she will say more, she will say she doesn’t have any email whatsoever and you know why.)

If you are one of the agency department heads who bent to her will and suffered acid reflux for doing so, or Bruno’s, or whoever is nominal chair, don’t worry: be quiet and there’s a job at Post Buckley Shuh Jernigan or another engineering company or a compliant municipality like Hialeah, waiting for you on retirement.

We are not inclined to blame the Herald, as Codina and Pino will be doing today.

But we do have a question: on the one hand, your reporters write strong stories about rum drinks on Hatteras in the Cancun and private jet travel between developer and pal county commissioner in which allegedly no county business is discussed. Why, then, when you had the chance to endorse county commissioners, did you support incumbents and urge voters to resist the temptation to “throw the bums out”?

If we edited the Miami Herald, we would post a score box right on A2 in the bottom left corner: every single edition of the paper would record the number of days that the Miami Dade County Commission has failed to enact ethics standards and reform and would highlight the most flagrant ethical lapses that the blind Retriever of the Ethics Commission has failed to find.

We don’t need the reminder, but 2.3 million people who live in Miami-Dade County, do.

I Don't Want to Write Today so...CLIMATE CHANGE. By Geniusofdespair

I woke up this morning and before I looked at the blog I said to myself, "I hope you wrote something Alan, anything even another global warming/climate change article" (cough). So what if this was the warmest year in history, I will be dead when the shit hits the fan. Not happening on Alan writing.  Some of our most recent posts have been brilliant, so go  back and read them,  Especially read the County Commission Committee changes Chair Monestime made....

So, here I am with nothing to write about except Ted Cruz, nitwit Senator from Texas. This is why I don't like Republicans even though I am one, the wackos rise to the top to wreak havoc on the rest of us. This is why the Senate shouldn't be Republican. They put Ted Cruz as Chairman of a Sub-Committee:

"The reversal of the U.S. Senate’s majority party is falling into place, and there is reason for concern over how new committee chairs will influence the agencies they oversee. Right now two big reasons are garnering the most attention: Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) will chair the subcommittee that oversees NASA, and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) will chair to the subcommittee that oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. Both have gone on record denying human-caused climate change."

On another note, here is your sea level rise fix.  Actually watch this damn video, it is about an upcoming vote on Climate Change Resolutions at the County Commission. Former Miami Dade County Commission chair Rebeca Sosa on Climate Change, you have to watch it.


Having problems? watch on YouTube

Thank you Rebeca Sosa. Call your County Commission tell them to approve these resolutions. I heard the LBA is going to challenge them so talk to your County Commissioner before the meeting January 21st.  Pepe Diaz is a sponsor because his district floods, not because he cares.

11A11
	150048	Resolution	Rebeca Sosa, Prime Sponsor Daniella Levine Cava, Co-Sponsor Jose "Pepe" Diaz, Co-Sponsor
	RESOLUTION DIRECTING THE MAYOR OR DESIGNEE TO STUDY THE FEASIBILITY OF DESIGNATING CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION ACTION AREAS AS RECOMMENDED IN THE COMPREHENSIVE DEVELOPMENT MASTER PLAN [SEE ORIGINAL ITEM UNDER FILE NO. 142560]				PDF
	12/11/2014	Forwarded to BCC with a favorable recommendation with committee amendment(s) by Land Use & Development Committee Passed 5 - 0
11A12
	150049	Resolution	Rebeca Sosa, Prime Sponsor Daniella Levine Cava, Co-Sponsor Jose "Pepe" Diaz, Co-Sponsor
	RESOLUTION DIRECTING THE MAYOR OR MAYOR’S DESIGNEE TO PREPARE AN ACTION PLAN AND REPORT TO IMPLEMENT THE MIAMI-DADE COUNTY CLIMATE CHANGE ADVISORY TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS OF (I) ESTABLISHING DEPARTMENTAL OVERSIGHT FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS AND (II) DEDICATING SUFFICIENT RESOURCES AND STAFFING TO REVIEW, UPDATE, AND IMPLEMENT THE MIAMI-DADE COUNTY CLIMATE CHANGE ADVISORY TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS [SEE ORIGINAL UNDER FILE NO. 142561]				PDF
	12/11/2014	Forwarded to BCC with a favorable recommendation with committee amendment(s) by Land Use & Development Committee Passed 5 - 0
11A13
	150051	Resolution	Rebeca Sosa, Prime Sponsor Daniella Levine Cava, Co-Sponsor Jose "Pepe" Diaz, Co-Sponsor
	RESOLUTION DIRECTING THE MAYOR OR MAYOR’S DESIGNEE TO PREPARE AN ACTION PLAN AND REPORT TO ACCELERATE THE CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION PLANNING PROCESS BY EVALUATING THE ENGINEERING AND OTHER RELEVANT EXPERTISE NEEDED TO DEVELOP AN ENHANCED CAPITAL PLAN THAT INCLUDES BUT IS NOT LIMITED TO FLOOD PROTECTION, SALINITY STRUCTURES, PUMP STATIONS, AND ROAD AND BRIDGE DESIGNS, AND TO DETERMINE THE COSTS OF RETAINING THE EXPERTS NEEDED [SEE ORIGINAL ITEM UNDER FILE NO. 142562]				PDF
	12/11/2014	Forwarded to BCC with a favorable recommendation with committee amendment(s) by Land Use & Development Committee Passed 5 - 0
11A14
	150052	Resolution	Rebeca Sosa, Prime Sponsor Daniella Levine Cava, Co-Sponsor Jose "Pepe" Diaz, Co-Sponsor
	RESOLUTION DIRECTING THE MAYOR OR MAYOR’S DESIGNEE TO CONTINUE STRATEGIC IMPLEMENTATION OF MIAMI-DADE COUNTY’S ENVIRONMENTALLY ENDANGERED LANDS (EEL) PROGRAM, CONSISTENT WITH PROGRAM OBJECTIVES AS APPROVED BY THE VOTERS, AND TO IDENTIFY POTENTIAL ADDITIONAL LONG-TERM FUNDING SOURCES FOR THE CONTINUED ACQUISITION AND MANAGEMENT OF EEL LANDS [SEE ORIGINAL ITEM UNDER FILE NO. 142564]				PDF
	12/11/2014	Forwarded to BCC with a favorable recommendation with committee amendment(s) by Land Use & Development Committee Passed 5 - 0
11A15
	150053	Resolution	Rebeca Sosa, Prime Sponsor Daniella Levine Cava, Co-Sponsor Jose "Pepe" Diaz, Co-Sponsor
	RESOLUTION REQUESTING THAT THE SOUTH FLORIDA WATER MANAGEMENT DISTRICT, THE UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, AND THE SOUTHEAST FLORIDA REGIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE COMPACT PARTNERS WORK WITH MIAMI-DADE COUNTY ON ISSUES OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND SEA LEVEL RISE, AND DIRECTING THE MAYOR OR MAYOR’S DESIGNEE IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE OFFICE OF INTERGOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS TO WORK JOINTLY WITH THESE ENTITIES TO CONDUCT A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY AND DEVELOP ADAPTATION STRATEGIES TO ADDRESS POTENTIAL FLOOD DAMAGE REDUCTION AND SALTWATER INTRUSION ASSOCIATED WITH SEA LEVEL RISE AND PUT FORTH A TIME FRAME FOR IMPLEMENTATION AND POTENTIAL FUNDING MECHANISMS [SEE ORIGINAL ITEM UNDER FILE NO. 142566]				PDF
	12/11/2014	Forwarded to BCC with a favorable recommendation with committee amendment(s) by Land Use & Development Committee Passed 5 - 0
11A16
	150054	Resolution	Rebeca Sosa, Prime Sponsor Daniella Levine Cava, Co-Sponsor Jose "Pepe" Diaz, Co-Sponsor
	RESOLUTION DIRECTING THE MAYOR OR DESIGNEE IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE OFFICE OF INTERGOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS TO INITIATE DISCUSSIONS RELATED TO CLIMATE CHANGE WITH PRIVATE INSURANCE AND REINSURANCE PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS, MEMBER LOCAL GOVERNMENTS IN THE SOUTHEAST FLORIDA CLIMATE CHANGE COMPACT, THE FLORIDA OFFICE OF INSURANCE REGULATION’S DEPARTMENT OF FINANCIAL SERVICES, AND OTHER KEY STAKEHOLDERS TO DEVELOP LONG-TERM RISK MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS [SEE ORIGINAL ITEM UNDER FILE NO. 142567]				PDF
	12/11/2014	Forwarded to BCC with a favorable recommendation with committee amendment(s) by Land Use & Development Committee Passed 5 - 0

:

Pepe Diaz, nothing but net ... by gimleteye

Great story by Matt Haggman and Martha Brannigan in Sunday's Miami Herald about county commissioner Pepe Diaz, one of the unreformable majority who has inherited the mantle of point guard, profiting from contracts at Miami International Airport. Diaz is director of a company I had never heard of, U.S. Construction that has jumped to the head of the line for contracting jobs at MIA. Diaz received $120,000 in 2009 from the company. The Herald writes, "Diaz's employment with U.S. Construction, coming at a time its work is mushrooming at a public airport in which the commissioner is a key political player, shows that the lines between public life and private business can sometimes blur." Sometimes? How about ALL the time. Miami International Airport has been, for decades, the money tree for the unreformable majority led by Natacha Seijas. Lobbyists Chris Korge, Rodney Barreto, Sergio Pino (of US Century Bank) and a host of others serving current and former political players, including Barbara Jordan. Airport Director Jose Abreu told the Herald, "Everybody is entitled to make a living, especially commissioners who don't get a [substantial] salary" ... He added that he's never seen Diaz misuse his public position to gain leverage for U.S. Construction." Of course not. It's all done on a wink and a handshake on fishing boats in the Gulf of Mexico, or private jets, or trips to Puerto Rico or the Bahamas. Diaz is adept at using his political power in favor of business interests from the dais: Lowe's outside the Urban Development Boundary and rock miners come to mind. But pushing his muscle extends even beyond; there's the story of Calusa Campground, a fledgling development in the Florida Keys, where Diaz owns property and where he and Santiago Echemendia pushed the Monroe County Commission around. As a local political appointee to the federal state working group on Everglades restoration, Diaz made it his point to be a fly in the ointment. That guy shouting "flood!" in a crowded theater, it's Pepe. So what are we to believe, with respect to influence peddling at MIA? That it doesn't occur, or, just doesn't need to be said aloud?(see our archive, under Pepe Diaz - 52 posts.)

At the County Committee Meeting: 2 Proposed Ordinances on UDB at Stake. By Geniusofdespair and gimleteye

Very annoyed to be here. I will write a bit about it. Bruno Barreiro, Pepe Diaz, Barbara Jordan, Audrey Edmonson, Jean Monestime and Lynda Bell are on the dais. Rebeca Sosa had to leave for a port thing. Right now the pool cleaners are complaining they shouldn't have to be licensed/certified. Professional pool guys want the licensing. Lynda Bell wants to get rid of licensing. She is such an idiot. No licensing then no insurance. So homeowners get screwed if there is an accident.

What's up with Miami Dade County Commissioner Pepe Diaz and Tew Cardenas in the Florida Keys ... by gimleteye

It's almost better than watching American Idol, -- the May 20th meeting of the Monroe County Commission (BOCC 5/20/2009, #2) where Pepe Diaz, Miami-Dade County Commissioner and Santiago Echemendia, of the Miami-based political and legal shop, Tew Cardenas, pleaded and were on the losing side of approval of a development agreement regarding Calusa Campground, a 367 unit trailer park where Diaz owns a lot. The issue will come again, at the mid-June meeting of the local county commissioners.

There has been an enduring, multi-year controversy surrounding the campground. There are issues of code violations, numbering the high hundreds, of calls to the Monroe County Sheriff's department-- in the past two years, more than 400, overcrowding of adjacent canals in violation of US Army Corps of Engineer rules, and most importantly a question of legal access from US 1 to the campground on Florida Bay, through property separately owned.

I recently wrote about the Calusa Campground. There is more to come. Why is a big law firm, best known for its close association to Jeb Bush through the name partner's role as campaign finance chair, Al Cardenas, wrapped up in a zoning issue with a RV park in Key Largo? It's costing Tew Cardenas' clients a lot of money to keep the powerhouse law firm commuting back and forth from Miami to Marathon and Key Largo. Why is the former mayor of Monroe County, now county commissioner, Mario DeGennaro running point for Diaz? Why did Tew Cardenas recruit state representative Ron Saunders to its cause? Roman Gastesi, a former Miami-Dade County water official and lobbyist for Tew Cardenas, is now county manager for Monroe County. What is Tew Cardenas' role in Monroe County? These mysteries tie, one way or another, back to money.

Diaz bought his unit as the housing bubble was reaching its top, in 2004. One aspect of the videotaped meeting that is particular delicious: Pepe Diaz blowing through the clock / buzzer at the speakers podium and alloted time for him to speak "as a private citizen" in the losing cause before the Monroe County Commission on May 20th. When Pepe, Miami Dade County Commissioner, commandeered the dais on behalf of Lowe's Corporation and its application to move the Urban Development Boundary in Miami-Dade, he often used the clock to cut critics short.

I'm going to expand on components of this story related to Calusa Campground. (Pepe Diaz didn't like our last post very much, telling whoever would listen that "no one reads this blog". Hmmm. Whoever would listen is also reading this blog.)

ATV's, The Everglades Jetport and Commissioner Pepe Diaz ... by gimleteye

Miami-Dade County and Collier County are apparently collaborating on an application to the state, to allow All Terrain Vehicles (ATV's) on a section of the Everglades where the former, proposed site of the Everglades Jetport is located. Here, County Commissioner Pepe Diaz is spear-heading the effort that is certain to create permitting obstacles, an aroused public, the diversion of government agencies, and litigation. It can only be that sowing discontent is exactly what Commissioner Diaz wants to achieve. Diaz found himself on the other side of an irritating controversy with opposing neighbors with respect to his mobile home lot in a Key Largo trailer park literally next door to lands owned by Everglades National Park (see Calusa Park Campground under our archive feature, under "Pepe Diaz"). Diaz, who has mastered professing to be all things environmental, seems vengeful. (please click, 'read more')

ATV supporters will be riled up by the impending conflict with government agencies, just the way that user groups were with the elevation of Tamiami Trail or land speculators with the 8.5 Square Mile Area. It's part of the mechanical dance of regulatory failure, that goes under the heading of partisan politics. The instigators -- who may or may not be enthusiasts of dirt bike or ATV riding-- know this perfectly well. In Miami-Dade, the design of regulatory failure has been elevated to a high art.

All concerned should watch, on Public Broadcasting Service television, the recent documentaries on the founding of Big Cypress National Preserve and Biscayne National Park (part of the Ken Burns' series, "The National Parks, America's Best Idea"). In the case of Big Cypress, in particular, the Everglades Jetport featured prominently in decisions all the way to the White House to elevate protections for this part of the Everglades. The months and years of controversies, dating back to the 1960's and 1970's, must not be forgotten in the rush to propose new controversies. Miami Dade County Commissioner Pepe Diaz knows better-- he does, after all, advertise his elevated appointments to Everglades review groups-- but within his district, there is no penalty for his behavior, cheered and egged on by powerful interests who have far more to gain by stirring popular passions against environmental protection.

County Commissioner Pepe Diaz in The Miami Herald: He has an unmitigated assumption of entitlement. By Geniusofdespair

I copied my title from a letter to the editor about Kottkamp. Fits better here.

The article today in the Miami Herald about Pepe 'Le Pew' Diaz will go exactly nowhere. Yes he makes a wad of money from an airport contractor and the contractor, U.S. Construction, has gotten rich with a bonanza of airport contracts since hiring Miami Dade County Commissioner Pepe Diaz. And, did I mention that Pepe "...served as chairman or vice chairman of the County Commission's committee overseeing Miami International Airport" during the same time this company hitched onto the airport gravy-train? Read the article, it is pretty disgusting, even mentions his last two bosses who are in jail, but the last few lines of the article made me sickest because you see the character of this guy revealed:

Last spring, commissioners considered asking voters to boost their salaries to $92,000 -- a number derived from a state population formula -- while restricting themselves from holding a second job. The panel ultimately rejected the idea. Diaz vigorously opposed any limits on outside work, saying that $92,000 ``is not a true salary. I don't think it's right, I really don't,'' said Diaz. ``You are going to limit yourself to a salary that is not fitting to the office you are holding.''

WHAT???? This guy is so pompous he should wear a crown. U.S. Senators -- important officeholders not self-important officeholders -- only make $169,300. First he is unfit for this 'local' office he holds and guess what Pepe, second: It is 'fitting' that you only make $6,000 a year in the insignificant 'local' office you hold so dear with your iron grip. Most of your constituents don't even know who you are.

I like what this poster said about Pepe Le Pew on my YouTube video of him voting against banning assault weapons:

Jose Pepe Diaz is truly what is wrong with Miami politics a more self serving disaster is hard to find.

However in the history of Miami politics REGARDLESS of how self serving and/or corrupt a politico might be he/she ALWAYS gets reelected till the day the FBI carts them away.

In a real non banana republic city this guy would have been kicked out or in jail.

Odds and Ends: Vitran Homes, Gov. Charlie Crist, Pepe Diaz' chauffeur, and Bank United ... by gimleteye

Gov. Charlie Crist was headed to sign SB 360, the Bad Developer Bill, when a firestorm of public opposition attacked the idea that the special interests responsible for destroying Florida's economy should be given an easier bill of passage to wreck more of Florida's landscape. If Crist wants to be the next US Senator he has to reject this bill. And if he does veto this legislation-- plus a few other terrible bills on water and the environment-- he will have to run as a populist Republican. The money brokers and Club for Growth'ers have already expressed their distaste for Crist. Is there such a thing as a populist Republican? I think, the few that are left are developers or belong to Associated Industries. When the carpetbaggers are boasting their "green" credentials, you know the economy must be really, really bad. Which brings us to Pepe Diaz:

Earlier this week, I posted a photo showing a Miami-Dade police car at a mobile park in Key Largo where Pepe Diaz not only owns a lot, but is actively lobbying to convert the underlying zoning from trailer park to single family residences. The photo was provided by a reader. One commenter wrote, "I usually enjoy your insight but regarding this story you are wrong. First of all the police car you are showing belongs to a police officer that lives there and he is not a sergeant at arms. So before you print half truths like the herald..check your facts." If the police car belongs to a Miami-Dade officer, I was wrong. But if there is a half-truth to it, then Pepe Diaz-- a county commissioner who has lead the zoning vote for Lowe's to move the Urban Development Boundary that was recently rejected by a state court-- should disclose to the public how many trips from Miami to Key Largo were made, when he was driven by a sergeant-at-arms. Here is what Pepe said to the Herald:

''As you know, the responsibilities of a County Commissioner extend far beyond meetings at the Stephen P. Clark Center,'' Diaz told the Herald. "I have used sergeants-at-arms when necessary to ensure my safety and security.''


A few weeks ago, I wrote a long essay on the destructive growth industry in Florida, and in Miami in particular which is the epicenter of the housing bust. I cited, as an example, a fetid, crappy development in South Dade called Vitran Homes whose owner is a board member of one of the influential building trade associations that is always in front of the county commission (cf. Pepe Diaz) blasting away at citizen and environmental groups in order to get their zoning in farmland. Anyhow, a reader who is actually a resident of Vitran Homes found the article on the web (isn't the Internet a wonderful resource) and wrote this letter:

Hello, Alan;

"I came across your article on the internet when I googled "Vitran Homes" needless to say "Very Interesting". Unfortunately I am one of the 18 homeowners that got stuck in the community. I will be going on 2 years of living there this August and let me tell you I hate it!!!

The builder has never done anything to clean out the place I am surrounded by weeds and wild animals not to say the stray dogs "LOL". It's so unfortunate as all my life savings went into this home that this developer made look like a dream and was outrageously priced compared to what they are worth now and I can tell you I am really up-side down on it. My e-mail might be funny to you but I just thought I would share a piece of my mind and say how disgusted I am of this community and builder. I am now in the process of looking for a new place to RENT of course because my home has no equity therefore I cannot buy another property, I will probably end up renting the house to someone with section 8 just like Vitran Homes has done to all of the homes that were not closed on and just hope for the best. By the way I believe they are being sued on the remainder 91 homes by Ocean Bank,,,, geeeee I wonder if they are giving the Bank the rent money they are collecting.

Alan, if you know of anyone that I can speak to, to see what my rights are as I was lied to and taken advantage of by this builders false expectation and greed please let me know, I would love to sue them for the money that I put down on my house.... but I don't even know if this is possible. Anyways great article..... Thank you and have a wonderful day!"

Vitran Homes at the Preserves

Dear Reader, I assure you: there is nothing funny about your letter. Thank you for sending it. The story you tell is the flip side of the terrible zoning decisions made by the county commission, that turned Homestead, Florida City, and the edges of the county into disaster areas. Years ago, Homestead banker Bill Losner used to get up in public meetings and demand new development because the only development that existed at the time in South Dade was all for Section 8'ers. Well, Bill got what he wanted. He was able to build up his deposit and loan base and sold out at the top while the community he professed to love was wrecked by the building boom and, now, the foreclosure crisis. Maybe you should be in touch with Bill Losner to see if he will pay for your unhappy situation. Or, perhaps one of the attorneys who read this blog would be interested in taking your case: did you save any of the brochures showing the development as it was promised? We would love to print photos if you have them, compared to what is happening today at Vitran.

This brings me to the end of "Odds and Ends": the disintegration of the region's powerhouse bank, Bank United, in Coral Gables. Again, it is fitting that the collapse of the largest casualty in the nation's economic crisis would happen right in our backyard: the same backyard, by the way, where Florida Power and Light wants to jam through two new nuclear reactors to supply ever growing "demand" for electricity. The taxpayer is on the hook for billions and billions. It would be a truly educational experience for taxpayers, if the Treasury Department and FDIC would publish photographs on the Bank United website of the underlying properties BankUnited invested in, to put a face on the foreclosure crisis.

I mean, every single cratered loan has a physical address. And a lot of those physical addresses are right here in Florida. Understand this too: that the fire sale of these toxic assets to other banks and investors are guaranteeing gargantuan profits to some of the very same people who caused this recession/Depression. You bet, I'm disgusted. But my disgust doesn't start with the favorable deals that are ripping off US taxpayers. The conditions for this disaster were created in the formula of converting farmland and wetlands into sprawling suburbs. Those conditions needed changes in underlying zoning, accomplished in Miami-Dade by the constant favorable treatment of special interests and developers and speculators by the unreformable majority of the county commission. (You can watch on May 28th, how the county commission will bend over for Florida Power and Light in its request to move forward its new nuclear power plants by mining 10 million cubic yards of fill next to Homestead AFB.)

People need to see with their own eyes that the suburban landscape, the strip malls, and overdevelopment of commercial and retail in suburbs, is what wrecked the US economy. It is those builders and developers who are fighting for easier rules and regulations through SB 360, who represent Vitran Homes, who are flattering Pepe Diaz as a great genius for promoting a new Lowe's at the edge of the Everglades, and naming stadiums in honor of a collapsed economic model.

We might consider asking UM President Donna Shalala to remove Bank United's name from the University of Miami auditorium. It has to be a morale killer for the students, don't ya think?

Maybe our readers could contribute their ideas for a new name for the center. I'll start off: The Foreclosure Auditorium at the University of Miami.

Local Miami Politician Pepe Diaz: supports wasteful, destructive spending ... by Guest Blogger

Miami-Dade County Comissioner Pepe Diaz wants $75 million federal dollars for Port of Miami dredging even after President Obama kept the dredging funds out of his budget. The dredging is highly controversial, but local pork'ers are attempting to use environmental agencies to support environmental destruction. Diaz recently asked the South Florida Ecosystem Task Force to support the dredging that inevitably rips out sea grasses and marine life. Diaz told Miami Today that he spoke to Assistant Secretary of the Army Rock Salt who assured him he would do what he could to support the Port dredging. He also told Miami the paper that Greg May, executive director of the Ecosystem Restoration Task Force and Corps District Commander Todd Semonite were supporting the port dredging.

Although the Task Force's mission is to "Restore the Everglades," not to lobby for the destruction of marine life in Biscayne Bay, Diaz takes his anti-environmental views wherever anyone will listen. Diaz, who has served as the local representative on the Task Force-- appearing infrequently-- once commented at a Task Force meeting on a picture of housing developments abutting the Everglades in Broward County, improperly permitted in the 1980s, and said that this was a perfect balance between housing and the environment and something he'd like to see happen in Miami-Dade. Mr. Diaz also obstructed Miami-Dade County from lobbying for the Everglades Skyway, an elevated roadway over Tamiami Trail that is needed to restore fresh water to the Everglades and save Miami-Dade's water supply. He was the main instigator of a plan to put a new off road vehicle park at the former Jet Port in the Big Cypress Preserve in a time when the Miami-Dade Parks Department was slashing services and personnel in its existing parks. Meanwhile Miami Today has also reported today that Miami will benefit from increased port traffic without the port dredging. Pepe Diaz: another Miami Dade County Commissioner who relies on campaign contributors from outside his district to do politics that damage Miami Dade County. http://www.miamitodaynews.com/news/110224/story2.shtml
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Pepe Diaz' Key Largo bungalow ... by gimleteye

A month ago, The Miami Herald's Jack Dolan broke the story of Miami-Dade county commissioners using sergeant-at-arms as private chauffeurs, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars including massive overtime charges. County Commissioner Jose "Pepe" Diaz was ferried "at least 144 times in 2007 and 2008". Diaz explained to the Herald "that he used the sergeants-at-arms to carry out his duties."

From the dais in county chambers, those duties include fronting for big developers like Sergio Pino and an application to move the Urban Development Boundary by Lowe's Home Improvement. Commissioner Diaz' duties also included, apparently, the hour and a half drive to his vacation get-away in the Key Largo mobile home park, Calusa Campground where he he has owned a lot since 2004.

Diaz, Miami-Dade county commissioner, is assisting fellow lot owners at Calusa to rezone the property as single-family residences. It is a controversial issue in the Keys; a county that has had enough speculative real estate development to fill a county a hundred times its size. This 2007 photo shows a Miami-Dade police cruiser parked near Commissioner Diaz' lot at Calusa Campground. (The photo was provided by an Eyeonmiami reader. Hit it to enlarge.)

''As you know, the responsibilities of a County Commissioner extend far beyond meetings at the Stephen P. Clark Center,'' Diaz told the Herald. "I have used sergeants-at-arms when necessary to ensure my safety and security.''





Posted on Sun, Apr. 19, 2009
Police taxi Miami-Dade politicians, and public pays tab

BY JACK DOLAN
jdolan@MiamiHerald.com

Despite pocketing an $800 monthly car allowance, several Miami-Dade commissioners use sworn police officers to chauffeur them in county cars -- costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands a year in overtime and raising concerns about personal abuse of public money.
Commissioner Jose ''Pepe'' Diaz was ferried at least 144 times in 2007 and 2008 by Kevin Greenwood, one of the commission's sergeants-at-arms who provide security at meetings and, of late, have essentially become personal drivers for a handful of commissioners.

Greenwood's service frequently stretched beyond his normal eight-hour shift, according to his signed logs, earning him overtime on at least 125 trips. Some nights, he put in exceptionally long hours, dropping the commissioner off at midnight or later at least 15 times.

Being Commissioner Diaz's personal chauffeur helped drive Greenwood's $85,050 base salary to $142,240 last year.

Another officer, Paul Hernandez, drove Diaz to the celebrity-packed grand opening of the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami Beach last fall, a fellow commissioner said. Hernandez logged 27 hours of overtime over that weekend with Diaz.

In an e-mail Friday, Diaz declined to discuss the Fontainebleau weekend but wrote that he used the sergeants-at-arms to carry out his duties.

''As you know, the responsibilities of a County Commissioner extend far beyond meetings at the Stephen P. Clark Center,'' Diaz wrote. ``I have used sergeants-at-arms when necessary to ensure my safety and security.''

While Diaz appears to be the most frequent user of the service, he is certainly not alone. Commissioners Bruno Barreiro, Audrey Edmonson and Barbara Jordan are among the others, according to a Miami Herald review of the officers' activity logs.

The practice has tripled the number of police officers working for the commission since 2002, and increased their cost to taxpayers from $211,000 to $743,845 in 2008, payroll records show.

The number of commissioners, 13, did not change during that time frame.

Driving the politicians has turned the generally ceremonial job of a sergeant-at-arms -- they spend much of their time asking visitors to remain quiet and take their seats during commission meetings -- into one of the most lucrative assignments on the county police force.

Newly elected commission Chairman Dennis Moss, who drives himself to County Hall and to almost all public functions, sent a memo to the board on March 25, laying out strict new rules for how the commission security staff shall be used.

''Sergeants-at-arms are not personal chauffeurs and are not specifically assigned to any commissioner,'' Moss wrote.

He explicitly prohibited his colleagues from using them to run personal errands, accompany them out of town, or ``provide personal transportation for family members in situations that have no relevance to a county event.''

Moss added that his office will review all requests for overtime and will approve them only when necessary.

The armed, plainclothes chauffeurs are part of a growing list of trappings that county commissioners have bestowed on themselves in recent years, including an expanding pot of taxpayer money they distribute with few rules and little oversight to voters in their districts. The current total exceeds $700,000 a commissioner per year.

While their listed salary is low -- $6,000 a year -- commissioners pocket more than $50,000 annually from an accumulation of other perks, including a $24,000 expense account, a $10,000 executive bonus and the car allowance, which totals $9,600 a year.

At a time when essential county services are threatened by declining tax revenues, some on the dais think it's unseemly for their colleagues to be driven around town.

Commissioner Carlos Gimenez, whose name rarely appears in the logs, noted that each commissioner already gets the car stipend from taxpayers to lease a car. ''You're supposed to use that car for county business,'' Gimenez said.

Commissioner Sally Heyman, whose name shows up on one officer's logs 53 times, said she relied on the driver while it was unsafe to operate a car because she was taking muscle relaxants and pain medication prior to surgery.

''I think the memo Dennis sent was responsible and prudent,'' Heyman said. ``It's time to reevaluate the use of the officers for other county purposes.''

None of the officers approached by The Miami Herald would comment, saying they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The newspaper reviewed their handwritten daily logs, which show the time they came to work, the time they left and which commissioners they chauffeured.

Rene Cortinas Lopez drove then-Chairman Barreiro 100 times in 2007 and 2008, records show. He also frequently drove Diaz and Edmonson. Lopez got the biggest overtime pay bump of the group in 2008, lifting his annual pay from $79,410 to $141,107, a 78 percent increase.

Barreiro said he asked for rides when he went to meetings in faraway places like North Broward and Palm Beach counties, or when he had to make several stops on the same day.

''That was very good usage'' of the officers' time, Barreiro said. ``You have to attend two or three events and give a proclamation, or give a certificate.''

OVERTIME TRIPS

Jorge Brito drove commissioners on 190 occasions in 2008, and 144 of those trips pushed him into overtime. Commissioners Joe Martinez, Natacha Seijas, Diaz, Edmonson and Heyman were all frequent passengers. Brito's base salary went from $84,690 to $136,353.

Seijas also had health concerns that prevented her from driving during some of that time, said commission spokeswoman Griselle Marino.

Owen Ferguson, who joined the sergeant-at-arms staff last year, drove Jordan 54 times from late June to mid-December, half of those while on overtime.

''I'm not doubting what you may have there,'' Jordan said on Friday. ``Had I known that the overtime was an issue, certainly I would not have continued the sergeants-at-arms.''

She added that being driven by others afforded her time to make phone calls and check e-mail, work she now does from home.

Michael Roan, another sergeant-at-arms, drove Edmonson 89 times from March 2007 to December 2008, working overtime on 52 of those occasions.

''If that's the truth, then print it,'' Edmonson said. Reached on her cellphone, she said she was at a meeting in Washington, D.C., and did not have time to answer any other questions.

Edmonson is not accompanied by any of the sergeants-at-arms on this trip, spokeswoman Marino said. But the records show they have flown to the nation's capital with commissioners in the past, collecting overtime practically around the clock.

All told, seven sergeants-at-arms have collected $630,000 in overtime since 2006, largely from chauffeuring commissioners. More than $250,000 of that came in 2008.

In an interview Monday, Moss declined to cite specific abuses, or explain in detail his reasons for putting the brakes on the service. ''It was just important to set up some rules,'' he said. ``Now everybody can conduct themselves accordingly.''

After consulting with county attorneys, Moss released to The Miami Herald the daily logs for most of 2007 and 2008, but he divulged no details on how the sergeants have been used since he took over as chairman in January.

''At the moment, there are no records being kept,'' said Roan, whom Moss appointed as lead sergeant-at-arms.

SYSTEM FOR RECORDS

The record-keeping system began in February 2007 after the MDPD Internal Affairs investigators asked then-Chairman Barreiro where Roan had been on two specific dates in 2006, according to correspondence obtained by The Miami Herald on Saturday.

Neither Roan nor Moss responded to requests for comment Saturday.

If Moss follows through on his threat to curtail the car service, no commissioner would be impacted more than Diaz, who regularly leaves his county-leased Cadillac Escalade at home in favor of a ''dignitary vehicle,'' as the sergeants-at-arms' cars are called.

Take the weekend of the Fontainebleau opening, Nov. 14, 2008. After clocking in to work at 8:30 a.m. that Friday, Hernandez drove Diaz to the Miami Beach gala. He clocked out at 3 a.m.

The next morning, Hernandez drove the commissioner from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. On Sunday, he spent 12 more hours chauffering the commissioner, records show.

At 1 ½ times his hourly wage -- the standard overtime rate -- Miami-Dade citizens would have paid Hernandez more than $1,500 that weekend.

Although Diaz declined to address questions about the weekend, Barreiro confirmed that his colleague went to the Fontainebleau accompanied by Hernandez.

Barreiro knows because he, too, had a sergeant-at-arms drive him to the party. But Barreiro wasn't with his driver the whole weekend.

``He took me home that night and that was it, I think.''



© 2009 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miamiherald.com

The Urban Development Boundary: New Developments to Wreck What Is Left of Miami Dade ... by gimleteye

County Commissioners Jose "Pepe" Diaz & Joe Martinez

Pepe Diaz and Joe Martinez, charter members of the Unreformable Majority of the Miami-Dade County Commission, put their stamp on a plan for a "working group" to decide "once and for all" (Diaz' words) a "democratic" way to change the Urban Development Boundary and the policy for the UDB that has been in the county master plan for decades.

We have blogged at length about the UDB. Use our search feature to isolate posts related to UDB issues. (I am a founding member of Hold The Line, the group that organized nearly ten years ago to attempt to stop the repetitive incursions by developers against the line, separating areas served by county-funded (ie. taxpayer) infrastructure from areas where development is restricted-- mainly for environmental reasons.)

At yesterday's meeting, the Latin Builders Association, the South Florida Builders Association, and Jeffrey Bercow-- on behalf of developer clients-- all supported the plan to create a "working group". Before the meeting Diaz promised would be fair and balanced, "3 to 3", but his own arithmetic is indecipherable only to him. The builder lobbyists also all voiced doubt during their comments; "skepticism" that any agreement could be reached with environmentalists. They had obviously rehearsed their lines together.

The notion of a "working group" was first floated to me by Joe Martinez in the early 2000's when a whole raft of developer applications to move the UDB sought to catch the wave of the housing boom. Bercow and his cohorts (ie. Neisen Kasdin) made the rounds of downtown business groups with a powerpoint presentation predicting that skyrocketing demand for housing would never end. They derided professional county planning staff in public forums including the county commissioner chamber. In comparison to Hold The Line, they were given deference and "respect" by Martinez and Diaz and Barreiro and the rest of the Unreformable Majority. At the same time, Hold The Line members were attacked by commissioners themselves from the dais.

It was clear to Hold The Line ten years ago, and to conservationists twenty years ago, that big agriculture and developers (basically the same, since big ag obtains bank loans based on the developable value of its land) want one thing: to build whatever they want, whenever they want so long as it makes a profit. Since risk is involved in making a profit, the balance tips to speculation where the crucial factor involves the manipulation of public policy and decisions by elected officials.

So, why a "working group" now? Simple.

In the last session of the Florida legislature, Gov. Rick Scott let the lunatics loose in the asylum. They succeeded in eliminating state regulatory authority through the Florida Department of Community Affairs. (At the local level, the same has occurred: the Miami Dade Department of Environmental Regulatory Management -- DERM-- was also stripped like a stolen vehicle in a chop shop: all on the premise that environmental regulations and enforcement hurt "jobs".) Laws that provided an appeal process for changes to county development plans that were nominally supervised by DCA have vanished in the blur of the economic crash and the disappearing act of accountability. Nothing means anything.

Yesterday on the dais, Pepe Diaz summoned the bitter memory (in his mind, at least) of the 2009 application to move the Urban Development Boundary for a new Lowe's at the urban fringe. He decried the loss of a "free" high school a charter school operator had pledged to build. All because environmentalists wouldn't let Lowe's build "three hundred feet" into the Urban Development Boundary.

Environmental groups-- once the Unreformable Majority passed the Lowe's plan over the objections of a state review-- took the issue to state administrative court. After the kind of protracted and costly legal battle that characterized these conflicts, environmentalists won. And it is because environmentalists had an appeal process that could, on occasion, result in victory, the developer lobby was further inflamed to go after the state authority in the legislature. Because Gov. Scott was clueless about the long history of land use battles in Florida, he simply nodded his bald dome and handed the keys of the granary to the thieves. This is the "democracy" that Diaz is trying to summon like a magician waving a wand over a top hat.

Eliminating state authority for land use changes had the immediate effect of putting the county commission on the hot seat: voters will now get to see for themselves exactly who is responsible for the ongoing destruction of their quality of life, communities, and environment. The burden rests squarely on the shoulders of the county commission.

To create plausible deniability for the massacres to come, the builders and developers encouraged Diaz and Martinez to form a "working group" that they of course would control and devise "recommendations" to change the Urban Development Boundary policy in county law. They want to do whatever they want, whenever they want. (This notion of a "permanent" boundary is nonsense. It is "permanent" until the next generation of county commissions ascends the glorious dais.)

Yesterday, environmentalists who contributed to Hold The Line said they would respectfully decline to participate in what is bound to be a sham exercise.

They also raised the pointedly relevant observation: prior county commissions have already spent tens of millions and thousands of county staff hours on studies and recommendations relative to the Urban Development Boundary. The last -- the South Miami Dade Watershed Study-- was the most comprehensive localized, science based analysis for water use planning and development ever undertaken in the United States. The builders killed the study because they didn't like the results. It was a shame. Years earlier, the county commission had buried the results of the Agriculture Retention Study, also involving the UDB, because they didn't like those results either. In response to the bad PR from killing the Watershed Study, the Unreformable Majority sought cover from the US EPA who was invited to review the UDB and because the EPA endorsed the UDB, that study was shelved, too.

So there you have it. The county commission just can't say, no. As far as the developer lobby goes, you can't paint stripes on that horse and fool anyone into believing it is a zebra. And, the "working group". Let's just say, that dog won't hunt.