How to increase voter turnout? No Vote, No Light … by gimleteye

If you voted, you get a tax credit.

If you register a car, you pay a penalty if you fail to vote. Finding the people who vote or don't vote is not a problem in this age of data collection.

In the Miami Herald, Maurice Ferre urges civics classes to educate children and increase voter turnout from the abysmal rates that plague elections.

I remember civics in grade school. What I remember is how many Americans died in wars to protect our democratic freedoms. Voting honors those sacrifices, I learned. I vote.

But it's not enough to save our democracy. Such is the peril today from an apathetic public.

In visits to India, one is amazed to see voting days declared as national holidays. Nearly everyone votes.

Why not, here? Shut down the stores. Turn off the traffic lights.

We have to try something. We have to change low voter turnout and the dynamic of American elections.

Watch Congress do nothing.

Perhaps the Miami-Dade County Commission and League of Cities should take up the issue.

I'd favor turning off everyone's electricity on election day UNTIL people vote. Tie it to the phone number on your electric bill. No Vote, No Light.

That's how strongly I feel about low voter turnout.

Hatred wins elections … by gimleteye

Hatred isn't the first cause of political instability. Fear and anxiety is.

We live in a time when there is plenty of fear and anxiety. People retreat to their own silos, clans, and families and blame "the other".

Now there is a mainstream media more than willing to earn huge profits by scraping at the scabs: Fox News and its local versions, the small timers like Sunshine State News for example.

Fear and anxiety pulls viewers in, Rubert Murdoch learned in Great Britain a long time ago. It's a formula with sure fire success with corporate advertisers. Why? Because the end game is a business goal that few ordinary voters understand: the elimination of regulations that inhibit profits even if they do protect people.

The best example are environmental rules and regulations. Although the environment turns up at the bottom of list of voters' priorities, it is at the very top of the list of the dominant industries that now contribute unregulated sums of cash to political campaigns. The Koch Brothers multi-billionaire private empire, for example, is 100 percent dependent on the use of regulated chemicals that are petroleum based and disease-causing.

As a result of the mid-term elections, Congress is poised to do to the US Environmental Protection Agency what the GOP legislature did in the state of Florida: turn the agency into a business-friendly adjunct. It's happening already, with Republicans complaining that industry paid scientists are not permitted on the science supervisory boards that guide EPA policy.

The new head of the Senate Environment Committee is, again, GOP Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) whose status within his own party is anchored by his fierce denial of climate change.

The Democrats are out-gunned -- not because the GOP has arguments the appeal to Americans more than they do -- but because their job is to "explain" while all the Republicans have to do is stir "hatred". Which is the easier course?

Explaining presumes your audience is listening, but American audiences aren't listening. Americans aren't listening because their main source of news, Fox, is stirring the pot of fear and anxiety.

Some critics have proposed that Democrats lost the last election because they didn't "hear" what voters want. That's not the problem. Votters can't articulate what they want because they are hypnotized by fear and anxieties stirred up by the GOP message machinery (visible nearly every night on the Daily Show with John Stewart).

Last night a Republican friend objected, saying that Democrats hated George W. Bush. Bush was an incurious president who lead us into trillion dollar wars without clear objectives: wars we are only beginning to pay for. Today, the proponents for war -- mainly the fossil fuel industries that have their own trillion dollar agenda in keeping oil flowing from the Mideast to America -- are even more solidly entrenched in Congress.

They won by hating President Obama for being black. He's their "other": a perfect foil to stir up the necessary fear and anxiety that makes it so hard for voters to listen to reason.

No question, Democrats have a hard road. Whether Republicans can actually lead Congress will take some time to sort out. The recipe for gridlock is in motion. The champions of the status quo are cheering.

America is a sad place because when hatred wins elections, even worse behaviors are not far behind. 

Beating a Dead Horse: More on the wellfield protection zone for dopey people with short attention spans. By Geniusofdespair

Well you might be over the wellfield protection zone reduction plan, on to your Khardasian double wedding news. To me this story is very much alive.

This is post number 3, I assume you think you have had enough of the wellfield protection zone --thinking let the government take care of me. Well the government is taking care of the DEVELOPERS not you. They see a lawsuit or an injunction and they get scared as shit. And extending 836 what could be more important? Your water supply maybe. The government is saying they are pulling less water from the wells so they don't need such big zones. That is what the developers are saying too. WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE? As we have more salt water intrusion we will have less water and might not be able to use other wells. We could pollute this water very easily and once done, it is gone.

Well you haven't seen an end to this subject, not here on this blog. Maybe in the Herald. Oops, it hasn't been there. I bet you didn't even read post number 2.  Go back and read it damn it so you understand this article.

This is the most important issue in Miami Dade County in our view. Forget libraries, Ludlam Trail, stupid Miami Wild and the Nail Clipper building. Focus. This is the hot story. I can't emphasize it enough. They want to shrink the wellfields. This is insanity.

How did this suddenly get less important? DEVELOPMENT PRESSURE.

Exhibit 4 Renken Et Al. - Environmental and Engineering Geoscience - 2005

Link to document

A second document:

From a letter from Environmental groups:

This is one of the water supply for Miami-Dade county residents. The consequences of getting this outcome wrong are enormous. Yet, the current reassessment of the wellfield protection areas fails to consider these additional contamination risks posed by new land uses.

For example, the USGS MODFLOW model shows that with expansion of mining, the wellfields preferentially pull water from mining pits, from which the USGS report contends “it is possible that contamination could reach the well fields quickly, within 10 days in some cases.” Renken et al. (2005) conclude from the 2003 tracer tests that “demonstrated potential contamination risks in the Northwest well field that are far greater than previously considered, indicating the need for reassessment of existing rock-mine setback distances”. The protection areas should take into account the implications of additional rock mining, and other land uses that pose contamination risks, which poses potential high risk to human health and safety.

Sincerely, Kathy Aterno Florida Director Clean Water Action / Clean Water Fund katerno@cleanwater.org
Sara Fain, Esq. Executive Director Everglades Law Center sara@evergladeslaw.org
Manley Fuller President Florida Wildlife Federation wildfed@gmail.com
John Adornato Regional Director National Parks Conservation Association jadornato@npca.org
Stephen Mahoney Conservation Chair Sierra Club Miami stephen.mahoney@florida.sierraclub.org
Laura Reynolds Executive Director Tropical Audubon Society director@tropicalaudubon.org

One last paper....

SS Papadopuos Evaluation of NW[1]

Link on Scrib


You might ask yourself why is Miami Dade County ignoring all these scientific papers and the environmental community. Very good question.  I think they don't care about the water at all. They are just going to give up on it and use a water treatment method, desalination perhaps -- like Tampa.

Why not pay big bucks for our water?

Picture of the day: Buckminster Fuller, Bernard Zyscovich and Harvey Ruvin. By Geniuofdespair

Inventor Buckminster Fuller, Architect Bernard Zyscovich and County Clerk Harvey Ruvin. Taken of a picture in Harvey Ruvin's office.

The Ludlam Trail needs an angel: Armando Codina … by gimleteye

Yesterday's public hearing at the county commission on the request by Flagler Development (alternately, Florida East Coast Industries) to rezone the former rail line to what the public would like to create from its property, a linear public park, was cut short by travel schedules of commissioners.

For advocates of Ludlam Trail, that was a bit of good news if not a ray of hope.

The well-attended meeting happened on the same day as a hedge fund billionaire, John Paulson, announced a gift of $100 million to New York City's Central Park; the largest in the nation's history for an urban park.

Advocates for turning the entire Flagler property into a community asset hope Armando Codina was paying attention.

Codina's life story, from a poor Cuban immigrant to an acclaimed, successful developer and board member at the highest ranks of corporate America, parallels the rise of Miami from an insular southern city to a sprawling megalopolis. He charted his own financial course through the tangle of local developers who created great wealth from condos (ie. Jorge Perez) or zero lot line housing (ie. Latin Builders Association) to a position of unparalleled influence. Codina is a top shareholder of Flagler Development and FECI.

In the case of the future of Ludlam Trail, he is also the most influential.

Listening to yesterday's testimony by Flagler's lobbyist team, what emerged was a very complicated -- too complicated -- plan to develop its linear 67 acre property stretching from Blue Lagoon near Miami International Airport all the way southeast to US 1.

The 6.2 mile stretch is unique in Miami-Dade county, and partly in various municipalities along the way. In addition to nodes for intense development, there is a plan for secondary construction, and despite its claim that traffic won't be an issue because the development is matched to existing infrastructure, no one should believe it.

The net effect of the plan would be to increase its development potential from 1345 units to more than double that number while retaining some 25% of the property, or about 18 acres, for a "trail". The 1345 units is calculated by the Miami Dade planning department from the current zoning category for the former rail line right-of-way, as narrow as fifty feet in some spots.

Flagler and the county counter claims that neither evinced any interest in developing the property until neighborhood residents and leaders began discussing the great value of this unique vacant parcel as connector, in the form of a community path, in one of the areas of the county least served by public parks.

Whatever the case, the fact remains that elected officials who are inclined to do what their contributors want do not like being pushed to change their minds and usually come up with many arguments -- supplied in advance of public meetings by lobbyists -- to point away from the public interest and toward  private profit.

But all is not lost with Ludlam Trail.

First of all, it is clear from the position of local community councils that the public does not want more development in this area. The Planning Advisory Board -- always more friendly to developers -- is predictably on the other side (isn't it time to clean house and have a PAB more representative of the public interest?).

Although the Flagler lobbyists and county both note that there is no funding for outright purchase of the property, this is a negotiating position.

If Flagler, the county, and neighbors came together to petition the state of Florida, the Ludlam Trail acquisition could be a top candidate for Amendment 1 funding, newly available through a percentage of the documentary tax stamp in real estate transfers.

The main obstacle is the weight of bad past precedents with right-of-ways to benefit the public; namely, the Miami River.

In the 1990's, Miami insiders, property owners, and their lobbyists (ie. Greenberg Traurig) spurned the opportunity to create the kind of park space that would have defined a vibrant commercial and residential center by allowing condos to dominate the landscape. (I recall trying to talk to Art Teele, at the time the county mayor, about this and he just shook his head. "Marty Fine would never agree.")

The thinking that prevailed treated public access as an orphan who could be starved because he was too little to complain effectively. The result was tragic for Miami, notwithstanding the bulging net worth of its creators through the boom, bust, then boom again.

Now Ludlam Trail and its environs are different. Residences and taxpayers are solidly middle class. You can't gild that lilly like Perez, a board member of FECI, did at the Miami River.

The logic of buying out Flagler's entire property for the benefit of the community is just too powerful.

But it won't happen if, on December 4th -- when the CDMP hearing continues -- should the county commission fold and simply votes to "transmit" the Flagler development/zoning request to the state.

By denying the application, the commission would point Flagler to work with the advocates for moving the state legislature and Gov. Scott to appropriate funds. It would take a couple of years, but the former rail line has been sitting idle and unused for nearly 30 years. Plus, securing the needed approvals from various municipalities along the route is uncertain and would also take years and even more lobbyist and planning expense.

If the commission votes to "transmit" the application, the burden moves onto the shoulders of Ludlam Trail advocates who probably lack the resources to mount an effective campaign in Tallahassee without Flagler's support.

That is why the involvement of Armando Codina is decisive. He understands perfectly well the community's need. He has made a fortune enough for one lifetime. Will he take the dismal course of past precedent and use a "public access trail" as a fig leaf for shoe-horning a development plan that has many obstacles of its own to surmount, or will he consider lasting legacy of an "Armando Codina Trail", support full acquisition or at least give it a fighting chance, and still come out right for Flagler shareholders?

It is something for Codina to consider, because after all is said and done, you can't take it with you.

Statement of Commissioner Xavier Suarez on the Ludlam Trail. By Geniusofdespair

I take this opportunity to impress upon you the following points, which were reinforced in a meeting I just finished with Ms. Vale and Mr. Formoso.

My observations and recommendations relate only to the portion of the Ludlam Trail that is in my district and that extends from SW 48th St to 80th St. (roughly 2.5 miles).

The premise is that the increase in density, unless it is restricted to the nodes abutting the three main intersections (Miller, Sunset and 80th/Dadeland), cannot be left to future adjustments, but must be presently determined, as part of the CDMP process. The corollary of that premise is that a vote to transmit at this time, with the increase in density, means that future efforts at land acquisition will carry with them a higher property value, and become even more prohibitive for government.

Based on the above, I strongly recommend that you take command of the segment affecting the above-mentioned strip, with a view to accomplishing the following:

1. Maintenance or even reduction to zero (in effect, to pure recreational uses) of the density in the residential segments of the 2.5 miles.

2. Explicit concentration of density in areas already zoned accordingly, i.e., abutting the major intersectional nodes.

3. Negotiation with both county and neighbors (numbering a bit more than 100 single-family owners) so as to purchase for public use and maintenance either the totality of the residential part of the 2.5 strip or at least half of the strip.

It is a mistake to treat the entire 6-plus miles of the trail as one. I urge you to revise that strategy, or face continued and increasing neighborhood opposition.

Thanking you in advance for your consideration hereof, I remain

Very Truly Yours,
Xavier L. Suarez

From the annals of the Great Destroyers: our Drinking Water in Peril … The County Wants to SHRINK the Wellfield Protectection Zone. By Geniusofdespair and Gimleteye

If you read one post this year: Make it this one. Some at the County may tell you that the push to update the wellfield maps came from litigation by Ron Bergeron/Kendall Properties Inc.

210 days (outer circle) my ass. More like a few hours

There is never an end to the war on the environment in South Florida. It is a battle of attrition lightly reported in the mainstream press between miners, sugar billionaires, developers, their lobbyists and proxies in elected office against neighbors, civic activists, and environmentalists. Those with profit motives normally prevail for the standard reasons. Until now, protections for the well field in Miami Dade County have been sacrosanct. Why are they being battered down now?

Of course, the Miami Dade planners have a rationale: "we don't need as much land as we thought we did when we expected to use much more water." But this flies in the face of the history of Miami-Dade begging the state to give it permission to draw MORE water. (And no where, by the way, has the county mentioned the need to preserve more fresh water supply for FPL Turkey Point's massive expansion plans: on the order of 90 million gallons per day.)

How the county and state government conspired to substitute highly engineered, chemically treated and expensive water for taxpayers in a region that once afforded the cleanest, most abundant fresh water in the United States for free is a long, winding and mostly unwritten story. (You can pick up the threads in our archive.)

The claim of developers and rock miners on the region called the West Dade well field is one of the starkest examples how baselines of what the public deems acceptable comprise between development and environmental protection are constantly shifting despite the best science and evidence calling for strict and stringent protections for our water supply. For example, during the term of county mayor Carlos Alvarez in 2006, evidence from tests by the USGS (US Geological Service) that underground water moved much more rapidly from the Everglades to the well fields, through faults and openings in the Biscayne aquifer, caused  the rock miners to press their case to limit future financial exposure to water treatment costs by successfully ramming through the state legislature caps on their liability.

For those readers unfamiliar, the West Dade well field is best observed from an airplane window seat on the approach to Miami International Airport. The large green, variously colored squarish lakes are rock mines. The rock is ancient coral reef that is not only the bedrock of South Florida, but the substrate used for cement and pavement in its many forms.

This limestone is extraordinarily porous. It is like a sponge or sieve. The reason that water from the Everglades was once so pristine -- requiring no treatment at all -- is that the sawgrass meadows and limestone beneath acted as a perfect filter. The reason so many ancient, indigenous tribes settled at the mouths of Florida's rivers (Miami River) and bays is that the interface between fresh and salt water provided extraordinarily abundant wildlife and (then) a limitless source of food.

Today, the Everglades are the background for bitter conflict between billionaire sugar growers, their proxies and lobbyists, and environmentalists. Over decades, these acid relationships have been smoothed out by government interventions that sadly fall short, always, of what the environment and ecosystem needs.

Until now, the West Dade well field has been isolated from that conflict. Why? Because what protects the Everglades also protects drinking water serving over 2 million residents and visitors. But the pressure of rock miners, land speculators, and developers on the well field is relentless.

Some of the worst, most congested suburban sprawl in Miami-Dade county is pressing up against the open space called the well field protection zone; determined to be the area necessary to provide enough filtration so that the water in our well fields is relatively clean. And they -- the Great Destroyers -- want more.

It would take a much longer report to describe what the well field protection area is sized as it is, and how the science of water quality and wetlands has imposed limits that developers now want to knock apart. After successive political victories at the polls, insiders have apparently determined this is the time to assault the well field protection zone.

Below are comments about shrinking the well fields protection areas (shown above) made by a host of Environmental Groups in response to the initial wave of attack against legal protections that have been supported, for decades, by county planning staff and experts.  Also read our previous blog on this subject from Monday.

These comments were sent to the County Commission as this well field protection area shrinkage will likely be scheduled for the December 16th meeting of the Board of County Commissioners.

The county is suddenly arguing that a big area of protection is no longer necessary because Miami Dade Water and Sewer is drawing less than permitted water from the wells. A smaller area would reduce the limits on developers (who may be failing agreed upon stipulations  regarding the impacts of their developments on the operation of nearby water drainage canals operated by the state.) A smaller area would also allow rock mining and development to blossom even further.

There are very good reasons the well field protection area should not be changed, and some of these are highlighted by engineering and environmental appeals to the county commission and county planners.

Joint Wellfield Comments 6.30.14[1]

(view in Scrib)

Scientist on the Environmental Review Committee for the County:

Below: Complaint from Kendall Properties Inc. -This is a complaint from Kendall Properties against Miami-Dade County.  Some at the County may tell you that the push to update the wellfield maps came from this litigation. Ron Bergeron is Kendall Properties Inc.. We have a whole file on him. Rock mining, Republican, pretender of Everglades protection, he wrestles alligators for fun and headlines and drives a huge black Hummer trimmed in gold. His fortune is based on exploiting the arbitrage at the edge of the Everglades: rock mining, land clearing, construction and development -- he is the most visible advocate for letting developers determine what is best for the Everglades.

It’s also important to note that the west wellfield protection area that would be eliminated is in the Bird Drive Basin where expansion of 836 outside of the UDB is proposed.

20130806141211559

Read on scrib

Also read BENEATH THE PINK UNDERWEAR in Miami New Times:

But beneath the pink underwear lay another story, which though less sexy, is much more important. It involves a complicated test by WASD, the Department of Environmental Resources Management (DERM), and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to find out how quickly water moves through limestone near the Northwest Wellfield. The preliminary results of this test provoked nothing less than shock in the scientists who performed it. Their reactions had more to do with drinking water, taxes, and the multimillion-dollar limestone mining industry than with the color of folks' unmentionables.

And:

On the morning of April 22, one day before people noticed their underwear was stained, USGS scientists drilled a test well about 100 meters from the Northwest Wellfield and injected what is indeed a harmless dye known as rhodamine into the limestone. Based on previous DERM water models for North Miami-Dade, they expected the dye would take two to three days to appear. The first traces showed up in about four hours.

Next installment.... Beating a dead horse.

Jennifer Glazer Moon and others in budget suspended by Mayor. By Geniusofdespair

The State rejected the budget on the grounds that the initial advertisement was erroneous. Must be voted on again. Mayor Gimenez appears to be very angry.

It is official Daniella Levine Cava is the County Commissioner for District 8. By Geniusofdespair

Link to video
Miami Dade County Clerk swears in Daniella Levine Cava as County Commissioner for District 8.

The Staff: Jason Smith, Johanna Cervonne, The Commissioner, Sean McCrackine, Maria Levrant, and Rick Morgan.

Ready to be sworn in.

Official Portrait

 

Trying out her seat on the Dais.

The Love of a mother and proud son, standing in Lynda Bell's previous downtown office..

The actual ceremony, you are all invited!!! Take the metro-rail.

Wildlife Abounds in Our Coastal Wetlands...For Now. Guest Blog By Concerned in Cutler Bay

I took this picture off SW 184 Street and Old Cutler Road of a Roseate Spoonbill

Roseate Spoonbill spotted at coastal wetlands restoration off SW 184 st and Old Cutler Rd.

How appropriate to have a nine acre strip mall up to four stories tall looming over these wetlands  on already traffic packed Old Cutler Rd? Yet the Cutler Bay Council will soon decide if the change of zoning the developer wants will allow this rape of our few remaining open lands to go forth.

Leverage: why the county commission should not accept FECI's zoning change request tomorrow … by gimleteye

Florida East Coast Industries is one of the largest, if not the largest, property owner in southeast Florida. At issue, tomorrow, is whether the county commission will accede to the company's plan to rezone the former rail line stretching near Ludlam Road, from approximately the airport in a straight, uninterrupted line to US 1.

FECI evinced no interest, other than land-banking, this property until citizens began thinking what a good idea it would be to create a huge linear park, turning the rail line into a unique feature that could be used daily by hundreds if not thousands of nearby residents. It is an area of the county desperately lacking public amenities like parks.

Suddenly, FECI began moving toward a plan to rezone and thus increase the value of the property.

It is hard, of course, to find money for public parks. In this case, however, the case will be made that the by bonding a purchase price, the park will smartly pay for itself through increases in property values nearby and, hence, tax revenues.

In other parts of the United States, there would be leadership and a spirit of cooperation to bring together community aspiration (raise your hand if you want more development in your neighborhood!), private property owners, and funding.

The missing ingredient, here, isn't money. FECI would get its money, if it helped push for funding allocations from the recent Amendment 1 victory (a portion of the documentary stamp tax will be allocated to land acquisition). The missing ingredient is leadership.

Unfortunately -- except in one recent case, the removal of incumbent Linda Bell from the commission (this will be, by the way, her final commission meeting) -- have not held county commissioners accountable at the polls. Two good examples of the tendency of local elected officials to abdicate: how commissioners surrender to Florida Power and Light. Whatever the corporation wants, it gets, and routinely bulldozes straight through expert recommendations of planning staff. The better example: the Miami River where a vision for using the waterway as the Central Park of Miami was crushed by land use lawyers, lobbyists, and developers like Jorge Perez (a board member of FECI) eager to use "public access" as little as possible to achieve their maximum profits.

FECI is not going to lose anything, by the commission refusing to vote and to delay on tomorrow's zoning decision. On the other hand, the public's dream for Ludlam Trail will be badly compromised if the commission accepts FECI's plan. Instead of cooperation, the Ludlam Trail advocates will be in an adversarial relationship with a powerful developer in a hostile political climate.

By denying or delaying the vote, the county commission could use its leverage for a better outcome.

Video of County Commissioner Elect Daniella Levine Cava's Everglades Trip. By Geniusofdespair

 (the video does not work on an IPhone)

I heard there were a couple of glitches (returning in the dark of night). We could have lost our  new County Commissioner  for District 8 to a gator, a python or marauding Roseate Spoonbills but she came back in one piece. (I hope her group did not leave litter behind)

Huge public turnout expected for Wednesday's County Commission meeting on Ludlam Trail … by gimleteye

More than 400 citizens -- nearly every single one in favor of converting the FECI property at Ludlam Trail into a public park -- poured into a Town Hall style meeting last week in South Miami.

The citizens believe that the rail corridor, abandoned by its owner for decades, could provide a unique civic amenity in the form of a linear park, if county commissioners can be persuaded that the land's value to quality of life and to the tax base is higher than if converted to condos and buildings.

FECI (Florida East Coast Industries) suddenly sprang to life when it caught wind of the civic activists and decided, only then, to change the property's underlying zoning to maximize its developable potential while retaining a fig leaf of accommodation for parks advocates.

One of the developer's most disingenuous claims by the developer is that it can't provide hard and fast details on its "compromise solution" on Wednesday, because those details would be ironed out AFTER the decision to re-zone and the parties (without the public) begins negotiating with county planners (read: captives to a deformed process tilted in the property owner's favor.) Believe me: I have been through this wringer so many times by fingers look like strands of spaghetti.

But never mind past or history (voters appear disinclined to pay attention to either). What about now?

On Wednesday, dozens of speakers will testify against a hasty decision by commissioners in favor of FECI. They will lament back room deal making. They will try to sway county commissioners who are closely tied to powerful, wealthy individuals who are the largest shareholders and FECI insiders.

Teachers interested in civics lessons for students ought to bring their students to the County Chambers this Wednesday, to watch what happens when elected officials "listen to the people".

Before funding for Central Park was committed in the 1850s, the creator of Central Park in Manhattan, Frederick Law Olmsted, explained that the park would be self-financing. His argument is as relevant today to Miami-Dade County.

When Olmstead convinced key decision-makers in 1856 to acquire title to the land, he based his argument on economics. To persuade elected officials, the New York City Comptroller repeated the essential point, "The increase in taxes by reason of the enhancement of values attributable to the park would afford more than sufficient means for the interest incurred for its purchase and improvement without any increase in the general rate of taxation."

This economic fact even more true in a region of Miami where developers and elected officials skipped over a well planned and funded park system; dragging down our quality of life and economy.

The Ludlam Trail is located in an area where hundreds of thousands of residents lack altogether opportunities for children and families and visitors and residents to bike and to recreate.

On Wednesday last week, South Miami Philip Stoddard who moderated the meeting told the crowd, ‘Everyone in this room knows that you start with a vision. But the vision did not include a public process.’

At the very least, Miami-Dade County Commissioners should defer any decision about a zoning change. More facts need to be presented, including the potential for funds from the wildly popular land acquisition provisions in Amendment 1, that passed the state-wide ballot earlier in November by a whopping 75% of the popular vote. Stand up for people for a change, county commissioners.


LUDLAM TRAIL
Plan to develop along old rail line draws ire
BY KATHRYN VARN Special to the Miami Herald

A town-hall style meeting Wednesday night regarding the fate of an abandoned railroad corridor running through the heart of Miami turned contentious quickly as residents and the development company continued to butt heads.

Is Miami-Dade County moving to shrink the size of our well field protection zone? … by gimleteye

One of the least understood and most important areas of public policy in South Florida involves the dispute over fresh water and its costs. Last night's 60 Minute episode on ground water mining of fresh water in California is sobering to say the least. California is in the midst of a drought for which there is no precedent in recorded, modern history.

In large part, the southern part of the state is only habitable thanks to deep well drilling. A huge percentage of the nation's food supply is grown in California and aquifer depths are plunging from surface to more than a thousand feet underground.

The water that is being tapped now to keep South California in business are ancient reserves that accumulated over centuries. What happens when those sources of fresh water dry up? No one ventures to say.

60 Minutes expose.

Why reduce the size of the protection zones?

The California crisis puts some context into the strange move to shrink the size of the well field protection area that serves 2.2 million residents of Miami-Dade with fresh water. The reason that everything to do with water management is controversial in Florida is that any number of insiders have call on water resources in ways that could drastically affect price and availability.

To start: there is the builders' lobby whose existence is based on obtaining water for new developments, there is Big Ag -- and Big Sugar, especially -- that demands its rights for water management must precede all others, then last but not least: the rock miners who have been chipping away at well field protections for many years. Oh, and Everglades National Park and Biscayne National Park: remember them?

Climate change, changes everything when it comes to water in Florida. "Groundwater is like a savings account", says 60 Minutes. In Miami-Dade, every bonded savings account is mortgaged to the hilt. Why mess with something that nature provides for free? Because we can. Still, with climate change on the horizon, making decisions on water withdrawals that could shrink the boundaries of the well field protection zone in Florida's most populous county makes no sense.

The Crespogram tackles the Marine Stadium deal in a 3 part series. By Geniusofdespair

Part 1, the Boat Show Deal.

Part 2. So now that I hopefully got your attention, go and read PART II of today’s stories where you will learn how Manny Alonso Poch, a Crespogram favorite, put together a deal that has been purposely been kept secret because once Poch’s involvement becomes public, a lot of folks are going to start saying, “What The Fuck!?!”

Part 3 How the Estefan's fit in.

Picture of the Day: Environmentalist Matt Schwartz By Geniusofdespair

Founded South Florida Wildlands Association. He is based in Fort Lauderdale.

Love that Panagioti Tsolkas. By Geniusofdespair

Florida's Most Radical Environmental Activist - Panagioti Tsolkas - Love Him

Panagioti Tsolkas getting arrested.

Panagioti Tsolkas has the best protests in Florida.  I have been at a few...not enough. When you see him at some kind of meeting you have to smile. There he is with hand painted signs at public meetings making everyone angry. He blocks trucks and highways in the name of the Earth. What could be better?

He has a following but no one can do it like he does. Try to get to his film festival in Lake Worth.  Get on his Facebook Page so you know what the radical left environmentalists are doing in Florida and elsewhere in the world. Mainstream Environmentalists don't like him much but we here at Eye on Miami are fans.

He is part of "Earth First."

Elections have consequences … by gimleteye

For years, we have joked that something in Florida's drinking water accounts for election results in the Sunshine State. Here, the state legislature is holding the conservative line on denying climate science ("I'm not a scientist", Gov. Rick Scott). Meanwhile, the Sunshine State lags in the nation and is being pushed even further behind on deploying solar power at the consumer level.

PSC staff backs utilities' proposal to gut energy-efficiency goals
Ivan PennIvan Penn, Times Staff Writer

State Public Service Commission staffers largely backed proposals by Florida's utilities to gut their energy-efficiency goals by more than 90 percent in recommendations released Thursday, a moved that angered environmentalists.

In a more-than-100-page filing, the commission's staff members presented their analysis of the hotly debated utility proposals, which also include elimination of rebates for installation of rooftop solar.

The state's utilities — including Duke Energy Florida, Tampa Electric and Florida Power & Light — argued during hearings this summer that energy-efficiency programs have become too costly to continue. The utilities said it's cheaper for them now to produce a kilowatt of electricity than to save it.

In their recommendations Thursday, commission staff members agreed. The "utilities correctly calculated the costs and benefits to the customers participating in the energy savings and demand reduction measures," the staff wrote.

In addition, the staff said the solar rebate programs should be allowed to expire in December 2015 because they "represent a large subsidy from the general body of ratepayers to a very small segment of each utility's customers."