The Mayor is strong on Charter Reform and I was very happy with his stance on term limits, outside employment, easing restriction on citizen petition drives and the rest of what he outlined on Home Rule Charter changes.
When he equates County regulation to economic hardship -- especially in DERM's enforcement to protect our drinking water -- he reminded me of Rick Scott. Let me remind you here, I like the Mayor what I don't like is his stance on this issue.
Many building regulations are there because of Hurricane Andrew. The community was not protected. Many of the DERM regulations protect our fragile Biscayne Bay aquifer -- our source of drinking water. Regulations are not job killers, they are protection for us, the little people. The housing bubble bursting is what killed the jobs. He said he heard a lot of complaints about regulations while traveling around the county. He might be reminded that the people he was hearing from "around the county" were the very same fat cats who wanted Julio Robaina for Mayor and the same fat cats twiddling their thumbs because they helped fuel the housing collapse, flooding the market with sprawl developments they had no trouble getting permits to build. The citizens, who voted Gimenez in, want to be protected -- Streamline fine, but don't cut out protection. I am worried.
7 comments:
Yes, be worried. Gimenez sounds like "little" Scott. He also made a point of saying in his "vision" for Miami Dade County that the purpose of government is to create jobs. Hear that everyday from Scott and the stuff about how "regulations" are killing jobs.
The DERM regulators need to get to Medley fast. The Town Council is about to approve a Solid Waste Overlay Ordinance that will allow hundreds of acres of property near Doral to be developed as landfill. The west wellfield for drinking water is only a short walk from this area. We need DERM to halt this insanity.
Stanley Tate was the best and the only one speaking the truth. I wanted to clap when he said government was not honest but was scared. There seemed to be a lot of either county staff or lobbyists in the room.
Lest you forget, there is no DERM as of last week.
Gimenez was elected to change business as usual in the county government and I think he has been true to his word. His job as mayor is not for the kind of heart. He has stood nose to nose with these labor unions and he made a majority of the unions blink first, and he still continues to work on the remaining unions and deserves good marks for his work. However, I hope the mayor realize that the commissioners luck warm support for charter review could fade fast so I hope he continues to keep putting preasure on the county commissioners to vote yes for charter review. This guy has plenty of work ahead, so lets see what he wants to do next. Now that his reorganization of county government was approved by the county commission.
Tate was asked and he was talking about the pretty girls one has to hire to navigate the permitting process. A cottage industry!!
Yeah, and I’m sure that developers would rather hire ugly girls? There is often a big difference between perception and reality, and just because someone with money says something doesn’t make it true. The Mayor would do well to learn this lesson.
There are problems with bureaucracy in County government to be sure, but to say that there is over-regulation and that it is to blame for the economic mess we’re in, is laughable. If anything, there has been too little enforcement of regulations, particularly when it comes to the environment. I mean, all you have to do is just look around.
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