Carlos Espinosa, director of the Miami Dade Department of Environmental Resource Management, resigned recently; a decision made after the low-tech lynching by county commissioner Lynda Bell and the rabid instigators at the Town Hall meeting she hastily convened to attack the department and its handling of land use violations in the 8.5 Square Mile Area.
The resentments that re-surfaced in far West Dade, bordering the Everglades, conveniently omit twenty years of history of government involvement and public pressure. I can understand why Espinosa was profoundly disturbed by the torrent of invective against the agency. In fact his career dutifully followed the unwritten rules in favor of the very interests who egged on the agitators under Lynda Bell-- developers and land speculators like James Humble who banked profits from government land acquisition and supported the Dade County Farm Bureau aka Growth-At-Any-Cost during the years South Dade turned into a low rent version of Kendall.
Espinosa never got out ahead of political ramrods-- like former county commissioner Natacha Seijas-- who called the shots on how tightly regulation and enforcement should follow policy. The anti-environmental forces never had a better friend than Seijas, but now they claim that her recall was their victory, too. Talk about revisionist history!
In other words, Espinosa managed DERM more or less along the lines of a regulator who protected the economic interests of campaign funders. Shame on county commissioners who did not stick up for the good soldier, after all he did for them throughout the housing boom and earlier, while the Homestead Air Force Base fiasco percolated through agency influence by Miguel De Grandy, Ramon Rasco, and the LBA board of directors reconstituted as HABDI. The county commission allowed a rookie commissioner, Lynda Bell, to throw Espinosa under the bus.
This is a miserable era in Miami-Dade, what with developers' yachts sinking in the middle of Gables estates and a sense of panic now that the land use pattern called suburban sprawl is finished, perhaps for a decade or longer. From the dais, commission chair Joe Martinez frets about "returning to governing" without even a single clue, what to do. The only hope for the speculators is to release lands they owe mortgages on, from the restrictions of underlying zoning. They've put up the 8.5 Square Mile residents to this work, but as usual don't look to the aggrieved land owners hamming it up in front of TV cameras for facts. If the public and media want the real story, that would be the big speculators hiding in the shadows where they foment the destruction of land use and environmental regulation. There is a full scale assault on land use regulation, at the state legislature right now. The entire armada of Miami-Dade lobbyists is there, making sure the destruction of nearly thirty years of public policy happens on time, neatly wrapped and delivered for signature by our barely legal governor, Rick Scott. In some cases, these lobbyists are the same who hold big mortgages for wetlands that have been accruing interest, unpaid, waiting for the recovery that will not come. If the UDB is erased, if anyone can farm or rock mine in wetlands or do whatever they fucking well please, then maybe some Brazilian or German can be dredged up with enough euros to obtain the discount opportunity and be the next speculator in line. Or sucker.
The way this old time charade is being pitched, is along the lines of the Tea Party antipathy to government, any government. We've seen this movie before. It was the Wise Use Movement in the 1980's embraced by President Reagan and feared by President Clinton. The Wise Use crowd wrapped themselves in the flag of "values" voters then just like the Tea Party is doing, now. Although President Obama's plate is full, what a joyful Earth Day it would be if he unleashed federal authority to stop the desperate measures undertaken by states like Florida, allowing radical extremists like the ones who have chipped away at DERM to win this race to the bottom.
9 comments:
Good ridance to Mr Espinosa. He once proclaimed at a public meeting that the commercial sites in Hialeah that were on septic tanks were overloading the city's sewer treatment plants. I challenged his nonsensical statement publicly and tried to explain that if the properties were on septic and not connected to public sewer that there was no way for their waste to reach the treatment plants. The day after I made him look like an idiot I had a surprise visit from three derm inspectors who promptly wrote me up for two bs violations.
Like I said, good riddance Mr Espinosa.
More likely that you misunderstood or are misrepresenting what was really said, and that is that commercial sites on septic tanks in Hialeah were / are taxing the city's drinking water treatment plant with contaminants. Pollutants dumped by commercial facilities into septic tanks are discharged directly to groundwater - the source of Hialeah's drinking water. That's why the Hialeah-Preston water treatment plant on Okeechobee Road has all those tall towers. They are air stripping towers necessary to remove industrial chemicals from the groundwater to make it fit to drink. If you were written up by DERM for violations then I suspect you deserved it.
No misunderstanding whatsoever. Whose lined up to replace him?
So sad, so true. Earth day for me is depressing. You did a fine job with this blog... Knitting it altogether in one pathetic doomsday.
If I wasn't depressed enough, I just saw something from Clean Water Action regarding the easing of Rock Mining in Florida, taking away what little control locally we have and having everyone go directly to the State. I thought the Martinez Ordinance was bad enough allowing rock mining to by pass local councils, but this makes him look like a novice!
This has not been a Good Friday for me.
An important clarification - Mr. Espinosa didn't resign, he retired. With the legislature proposing Draconian cuts to the state pension system, many executives (and others) are getting out while they can. Howard Gregg, Deputy Director at Parks, did the same thing - and there will be more. Regardless of personal opinions about the DERM Director, the agency provides an important measure of protection to our land, air and water. It's not perfect and it does get compromised by shady politics, but if Commissioner Bell us successful in destroying the agency, things will only get worse for the South Florida environment. Those of you that hate DERM, but claim to care about the environment, consider this. If DERM is gone, do you think the state of Florida - led by Governor Scott - is going to do anything to protect out collective resources? Fat chance. Contact your commissioners - tell them to save and strenghthen the agency. Don't be absent.
The 8 1/2 sq mile land use app is coming before the BCC next week. I also wondering why Moss is so quiet on this one, it's in Dist. 9. He's probably ducking for cover behind Bell. There's nothing that will convince me otherwise.
I am also suspect as to why this is "staff driven". Really? I'm not buying that either.
South Florida Water Management (or what's left of it) has major issues with this, but they'll be quickly muted.
Property Owners will scream property rights, well, under their current property rights it seasonal agriculture, not whatever the F*** they want to do whenever!
It never dawned on me regarding the mortgage holders. But that makes perfect sense considering this group of approximately 40 property owners aren't any voting block worth literally "dying on a sword" for.
I'd also bet the "farm" that some of these owners would sold land in hope of the Government buying their property and now they're stuck.
This is public policy at it's worse and yes, it continues to contribute to our "race to the bottom".
Anonymous before last: Read the title of the blog.
Genius, the anon above makes an important point - the title may say retire, but the body says resigned. There is a significant distinction and I think you (and gimlet) would be well to take some of the healthy critiques of your readers instead of acting like the Herald.
Anyway, I think you're making too big a thing out of Carlos leaving. As another commenter pointed out, the changes in FRS and retirement calculations are going to push out a bunch of top brass in the County administration. That had far more to do with his decision than any petty bullshit with the handful of over-the-top activists out in the 8.5.
The same people have been bitching about DERM and the Building Department for 30 years. Nothing's changed just because Bell had a public flogging in an area about 15 miles outside her District.
Carlos will pop up somewhere later - probably an engineering firm like PBS&J like so many of his predecessors have - and will make two or three times the scratch in the private sector without having to be belittled in public by a bunch of wingnuts.
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