SFWMD: Buy US Sugar lands … by gimleteye

On Thursday, Everglades activists attempted to persuade the governing board of the South Florida Water Management District to complete the deal made by district managers for the option to purchase US sugar lands below the Everglades Agricultural Area. The video was taken by Cyndi Lenz and the activists for the Indian River lagoon, who are desperate to stop the outrageous pollution flowing from Lake Okeechobee because there are not enough cleansing marshes to store excess water south of the lake: a lake called "the diseased heart" of Florida.

The reason water managers and Governor Rick Scott will not step to the plate and deal with removal of land from sugar production south of the lake is that Big Sugar will only yield its acreage when it is boxed in, with no option other than to sell. From the governing board? Appeals to legacy, history, moral right? "Stop the bullshit, grow some balls, buy the land"? Response: Excuses, excuses, excuses.

Eye on Miami's Saturday Editorial Page. By Geniusofdespair

...Only too happy to fix the Miami Herald's bad decision, to do away with their Saturday Editorial Page.

I actually have an opinion this week. 

I remember County Commissioner Barbara Jordan's anger at the Miami Marlins. They had promised jobs for her district then they advertised "Bi-lingual". She was angry because she knew it would leave out many of her constituents. They re-advertised without the requirement but we all know they still used it in hiring. Why are we not teaching her constituents Spanish?  It is a racial thing I am told, why should they have to learn Spanish? Well, it is stupid racial thing, stop with the posturing. They have to learn Spanish. Look at the numbers below.

How do we make the County Bi-lingual? You have to start all children in Kindergarten or first grade with real Spanish and/or English classes. Not some dopey course to use up time... a real serious second language course geared for young kids. I was told in the early 90's they had a Spanish class for African Americans --- 3rd or 4th graders -- but it was a joke. Besides that is too old. They have to be younger. Don't even waste your time trying to teach a language in middle school.

Frankly, if everyone in Miami Dade County does not know Spanish and English, they will not get the jobs they need even if they are otherwise qualified. South Americans refuse to speak English and we have to speak to them to sell them stuff they don't need.

I urge the School Board to take this seriously. I urge Barbara Jordan to lead this charge for the children in her district and be the face of the issue at the School Board.  The unemployment rates dictate that this is a good idea. So let's do it!

Commissioner Steve Bovo, looking at the Hialeah numbers, you might take an interest in English classes in Kindergarten for the kids in District 13.

As you can see Miami Gardens does the worst (Barbara Jordan's District) where many only speak English and Hialeah is second (where many speak only Spanish.)

The Miami Beach Boat Show

Letter to the Editor:

I must complain about Miami Beach Parking for the Boat Show. I parked over half a mile away and paid $40. $40!!!!! If I had wanted to park even further away, at the Herzog & DeMeuron designed garage, the charge was $80. $80!!!!  That is sick. Even New York City Slickers don't rip you off that bad. The Boat Show was very crowded with tire kickers.

Genius of  Despair

Editor's note: I agree with you, that is sick, $80 to park for one day?

Lincoln Road on a Downward Spiral?

The Boat Show didn't translate into any extra business on Lincoln Road which was strangely quiet with table empty on such a busy weekend. Yikes! I bet it was the $80 parking. The Foodie chain store William Sonoma reported they are leaving their South Beach location because of skyrocketing rent. Greedy landlord.


HUMOR SECTION 

Believe it or not, the rambling man, Commissioner Javier Souto, has been sending this out to his constituents. Where he came up with this description of himself is as sad as it is funny. Does he really see himself this way? He must really be getting senile:

Watch That Body Language: Carlos Gimenez's 'Tell'. By Geniusofdespair

He cocks his head to the side and closes his eyes. The Tell. What he is trying to TELL us is what we should be trying to figure out.

Watch this video on Carlos Gimenez talking about libraries. Did you know that Part Time is as good as Full Time? No wait...he says they are better. Watch his Tell when he is giving this stupid explanation.

The head tilt for bad news? For what he really doesn't mean? Watch the above Miami Herald Video for these.

My video is more than great but do not forget the Herald video I linked to. He is so willing to give up benefits for Librarians. How about he gives up his?

I threw this video together (patched a few different videos into one) in an hour of Carlos Gimenez on the rampage and his "Tell" is there when issues are mentioned. Watch the damn video.
The Fire Boat problem still exists by the way, I wrote about it Feb. 8th. Very interesting when Jim Defede mentions the Beckhams soccer stadium, and the money for the Dolphins and American Airlines Arena how Gimenez reacts, his head almost falls off it is so tilted (this is a very short video):



Watch video on YouTube

Maybe the Tell is when he knows he is wrong.

It is human nature, to focus on abundance and not scarcity: the divergent reporting on wild weather … by gimleteye

The awful weather in the Northeast is getting all the attention. So is the Pineapple Express, in northern California, delivering a stream of heavy rain to the drought stricken state. These are both instances of abundance.

It's the same thing when tornadoes rip through unfortunate communities. It is not just wild weather that attracts eyeballs to television news: it's the abundance of weather.

What is not getting so much attention, though, is drought. Scarcity of weather, as in the case of drought, doesn't get nearly the same degree of attention as snowstorms, cars piled up on interstates from the obligatory helicopter cockpit cam.

True: drought happens in slow motion, over a long period of time and in contrast, we are attuned to fast-moving stories of hurricanes and floods.

Today the biggest story about weather (and climate, of course) are the extraordinarily warm temperatures at higher elevations in the California Sierras. The Rocky Mountains/ Western ranges, too, are having a very poor snow year again.

A friend reports that a ski area in the mid-range Sierras, 7000 foot elevation, has announced it is closing until more snow arrives. More snow will arrive, but not enough to end a drought in California and the southwest that looks to be deeper than any encountered in the written record.

The snowpack is the Sierras is critical for drinking water for tens of millions of Californians.

Our politics, perhaps as soon as the next five years when water storage actually vanishes for some dense populated areas in the American west and southwest, will have to adjust. Too bad that human nature has shaped the world's greatest democracy -- that would be us -- into the logic of corporate depreciation schedules. Those accounting principles are typically required to plan a few decades out, at the most. That's what corporate America requires and what is produced for investors, to judge the value of their investment. Beyond a few decades, corporations do plan but the public doesn't get to see what those plans are.

Long-term planning counts for abundance in all things but aspirational when it comes to scarcity. Except for the US military, no one is planning for when the climate forces epochal change. See how we are on its leading edge right now.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article8050335.html

And here is a recent report from one California ski area: "SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 8 … WE ARE TEMPORARILY CLOSED UNTIL WE RECEIVE MORE SNOW. WE ARE WATCHING THE WEATHER OVER THE NEXT 36 HOURS, AS THERE IS A CHANCE OF SNOW BEFORE THIS SYSTEM PASSES THROUGH MONDAY NIGHT. THERE IS NOT MUCH IN THE FORECAST FOR THIS COMING WEEK, BUT STAY IN TOUCH WITH THIS REPORT FOR RE OPENING UPDATES. IF WE GET ENOUGH SNOW TO REOPEN WE WILL DO SO IMMEDIATELY."

Task Force Needed For Courthouse Dilemma Says Commissioner Levine Cava. By Geniusofdespair

What to do about the Courthouse issue? We don't want blocks of concrete falling on our heads and $30 million has been set aside for that. As far as most Commissioners are concerned we should just do an RFP tailored for one firm (we all know that firm, lets be honest commissioners, I know which one it is). I think Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava has a better idea: We should think it through now that the $30 Million has afforded us time to do it right. This letter to Mayor Gimenez has some positive solutions that County Commissioners might consider. The Mayor, up for reelection, should certainly take note. This letter is chock full of good ideas:

The Poll for the Next Mayor of Miami Dade County Pretty Close. By Geniusofdespair

Margin of error 4%

 From the Miami Herald:

The poll shows Regalado with 34 percent of the Hispanic vote, compared to 26 percent for Gimenez and 18 percent for Suarez. But Gimenez dominates in the other ethnic categories, taking 30 percent of the black vote (Regalado gets 10 percent and Suarez 12 percent) and 43 percent of the “white anglo” vote (compared to 8 percent for Regalado and 10 percent for Suarez.)

Regalado, a Spanish-language radio host, sees the numbers reflecting the core of her strategy: run up the score among Hispanic voters, then chip away at Gimenez’s decent showing with black voters and his popularity with anglo voters.

White vote?  Uninformed.

In the ethnic breakdown, the black vote is the most up for grabs, with 48 percent undecided. That voting bloc also a top priority for Gimenez’s political team. He’s taken high-profile roles in promoting a jobs program targeting black neighborhoods and announcing the relaunch of the Liberty Square housing complex in the heart of one of Miami’s most crime-ridden black neighborhoods.

The poll was conducted between Jan. 26 and Jan. 29. The ethnic mix was 58 percent Hispanic, and 20 percent each for white-anglo and black respondents.

When the poll asked Gimenez supporters why they liked him, 54 percent cited a good job done as mayor. Supporters of Regalado cited her work on the school board, and the desire for “fresh ideas.”

“The poll is consistent with the concerns that I’ve heard from Miami-Dade County residents and the desire for a change in leadership,” Regalado said.

Mayor Carlos Gimenez has raised half a million in his PAC "Miami Dade Residents First". By Geniusofdespair

Committee : (PAC) Miami-Dade Residents First

press read more to see the ENTIRE list....Donald Trump, Soffer, Odebrecht; Colorado, Michigan, New York, it is all there....

EXCLUSIVE: The Cuts to Police Personnel, How it affects you. By Geniusofdespair

Currently there are numerous cases where the suspected criminal has been "IDENTIFIED" but the cases are waiting in a drawer at the Latent Unit to be checked by a  Supervisor.

Police support staff were let go by Mayor Gimenez to help balance the budget. Big deal. Do we care? Well I do. Being so short handed makes it so that the unit mostly focuses only on major crimes. They don't have the man-power to focus on Burglaries, which is a probably the crime that affects most of us.

Here is the lowdown on the caseload (I don't understand police lingo very well so excuse any mistakes in that area):

The Latent Unit of Miami Dade County ..."is responsible for evaluating and comparing physical evidence submitted from crime scenes. Latent Print Examiners assigned to the Unit frequently use mechanical, chemical, and forensic light source methods to develop and visualize latent prints from crime scene evidence."

The Miami-Dade Police Department (MDPD), Forensic Services Bureau (FSB), services the greater unincorporated Dade County area and 35 of the incorporated municipalities which also include the city of Miami and the city of Miami Beach (total population base circa 2.4 million). The Latent Unit is a part of the Forensic Service Bureau.

Miami-Dade's Latent Unit is running very short-handed, personnel almost cut in half. Before cuts there were 13 Latent Examiners, 2 Lead Workers and the Latent Unit had its own Supervisor. Now, there are 9 examiners (8 workers & 1 lead worker) and they share 1 Supervisor with the Fingerprint Section because of the Mayor’s required cuts. The Lead Worker is busy checking non-identified cases. They also have a current backlog of almost 600 cases which have not been completed by the Latent Examiners yet. These are mostly burglaries. Also, they have about 200 completed non-identified cases waiting for the Lead Worker to check.

Most importantly, they have almost 100 completed and "IDENTIFIED" cases waiting to be checked by the Supervisor. (Mostly Burglaries). This means their reports have not been sent to Detectives or GIU, which means: The bad guys who have already been "identified" are still out there committing crimes and not being arrested because no one knows that they have been identified! Some of these identified cases are 2-3 months old.

Random Pixels: "Is the Miami Herald past the point of no return?"

Random Pixels asks the question we have ALL been asking for years and especially at Eye On Miami.

A great motivation for starting this blog over 7 years ago! was to provide readers who were interested with stories they / we care about, but that the Herald would not report. (Just look at our "category" list for frequently written topics, to see what I mean.)

The problem with blogs, of course, is that we can only rarely -- when we have the (free) time -- offer in-depth reporting. Mostly, we offer views based on a lifetime of experience with our subject material, gathered as civic activists in Miami.

RP quotes retired Herald reporter, Elinor Brecher: "Yes, the Internet is a major factor, but you can't discount terrible decisions made on both the news side and business side under both Knight-Ridder and McClatchy for hastening the Herald's decline. The governing principle was "give the readers less, ask them to pay more, and expect them to believe they're getting a good deal.'' You can't feed people a shit sandwich and call it roast beef."

Brecher is exactly right, but only EOM has taken it the step further: the terrible decisions were made for a simple reason, to fatten the pension packages of former Herald top executives and publishers. On the one hand, perhaps you can't fault businessmen for just following what every other newspaper/ corporate executive in the U.S. was doing at the time: using the advent of the internet to justify default behavior of stripping the car and selling its parts.

I wish the newspaper industry had fought back harder in Congress. But newspaper execs didn't fight or fought weakly. We are not a better nation for the Devil's bargain, swapping print for the internet.

"You can't feed people a shit sandwich and call it roast beef." Actually you can feed people that bullshit, what you can't do is sell it. What you can do, as a newspaper executive, is run the clock out while padding pensions and compensation. That's what Random Pixels won't say, but we will.

Jon Stewart is leaving "The Daily Show" … by gimleteye

The news cycle lit up with the announcement that Jon Stewart will leave "The Daily Show" in 2015. For millions of viewers for whom the show is the most reliable source of news in America, a pall descends. I join the mourners.

But I will not write the eulogy of an entertainer in the prime of his life.

It's been evident for some time that Jon Stewart has been restless on a show that made a lasting mark in the history of television. Talk about one per centers! (BTW, we predicted the end was near last April, here.)

The subject material, the writing, the skill in wrapping deep social critiques in humor (especially, the fact that "The Daily Show" has been the only steady, persistent voice against the cultural tragedy of Fox News): however you feel about Jon Stewart's pending departure, the guy deserves props from here to Kennedy Center and the White House and everywhere in between.

Perhaps Jon (we can use the familiar) felt he had grown old enough on "The Daily Show". Perhaps watching some of the stars he helped create move on in their own careers, he felt it was time to make room for growth in his own. That said, it is hard to imagine -- and Jon Stewart has said so himself -- there will ever be a platform as tailor-made, bespoke if you will, as the carte blanche provided him by Comedy Central.

You could feel the chafing. His connections to an audience of millions and familiarity was that deep, you could feel beneath the nightly doses of humor, his patience slipping away. Jon can't fake it, and that is what pushed him to pull the curtain down on a brilliant run.

My suggestion -- and I'm sure Jon Stewart is hanging on the edge of his seat -- is to do something altogether different.

For example, I can imagine Jon Stewart taking over Bill Moyers' chair at PBS; going full monte on the state of American democracy.

He could also lead a foundation or non-profit engaged in campaign finance reform since practically every single subject of ridicule and laughter on "The Daily Show" ties back to the corruption of democracy by big money and corporations as people. There are plenty of good and credible organizations that desperately need the personality to provide higher public visibility and could provide a bully pulpit. (He could also run for US Senate like Al Franken, but I doubt he would have the patience.)

Running a high-visibility foundation wouldn't give him millions of viewers a night to measure his success, but he would be taking a swing at the biggest issue of our time and if he connected, his impact would be momentous. Maybe it's aiming too high. What I hope Jon Stewart doesn't do, is a Jerry Seinfeld; a post-big fortune career of going smaller. Jon Stewart, go bigger.

Mostly I'm thankful because "The Daily Show" under Jon Stewart's leadership and an incredible support cast helped me find laughter at American political life as a tonic for despair, angst and bitterness. I will take that gratitude and respect, right to the end.

More, on the Jeb Bush I know … by gimleteye

On the Sierra Club Everglades list serve, there is a lively discussion about Jeb Bush's legacy in Florida related to the environment. Former water management district senior scientist, Larry Fink, writes compellingly today about one of the most tragic, impactful legacies of the Bush terms as governor: toxic mercury pollution. While there are many examples how Jeb's intolerant, narrow-minded vision for Florida's future abandoned taxpayers to the whims of polluters, the proliferation of methyl mercury in Florida's environment is the worst bar none.

Methyl mercury is a neuro-toxin with profound impacts on human development from the embryo, forward. In some parts of Florida, in the middle of the Everglades, it exists in the highest concentrations in freshwater found anywhere in the world. How did it get there, who is responsible, how can it be stopped? You will never, ever hear truthful answers from the State of Florida. I hope Larry's post can be parsed by our non-technical readers. It is a short burst covering the career of Don Axelrad, a scientist and former employee of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) who knows more about methyl mercury pollution than anyone in the state.

Jeb Bush was governor of Florida for eight years, beginning in 1998. At the time, I was a Sierra Club leader on Everglades and suburban sprawl issues, and also chair of the Miami Group of Sierra Club. I spent several years in the early 2000's working on an effort to hold the state of Florida accountable for deep well drilling, used to dispose of municipal wastewater and for wells that purportedly "store" fresh water for later retrieval. I learned, first hand, the level of fear that permeated Florida's environmental agency when anyone tried to pierce the veil of secrecy and control imposed by Governor Bush, who was a micromanager; forceful and intolerant of dissent.

Larry Fink writes about Don Axelrad, the state's top mercury scientist at the time. Don and Larry, both, were on the "inside": struggling to give voice to science over ideology. Then there were those of us, on the "outside", trying to support change; an effort I would add with extraordinarily limited financial resources. As an editorial aside regarding the pitched battles of David versus Goliath during the Bush years in Florida, I deeply regret the failure of Florida environmental organizations to litigate on methyl mercury; a failure I live with every day. Here is Larry Fink's post, verbatim:

"One of the unsung heroes in the battle to Save Our Springs (SOS) is Don Axelrad, Ph.D., then of FDEP, who worked with City of Tallahassee officials to obtain a multi-million dollar EPA grant to upgrade the Tallahassee Wastewater Treatment Plant to reduce the levels of nitrate in direct discharges and leaching of dewatering sewage sludge into the underlying aquifer. http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/City_of_Tallahassee_Upgrades_Its_Wastewater__125665533.html and thence to Wakulla Springs. http://wakullaspringsalliance.org/accomplishments/

Instead of praise, he was ignored officially and punished unofficially for working on a project unrelated to his responsibilities as the chief side-kick and then head honcho as Statewide Coordinator for FDEP's Mercury Program. This is because Jeb Bush tolerated no free-lancing or going off-script.

Concurrently, he was increasingly marginalized, harassed, the subject of political rewrites and kangaroo-court peer review of work products by FDEP judged superior by the South Florida Environmental Report Peer Review Panel for Chapter 3B, and threatened with termination when he would not be abused into leaving voluntarily. http://my.sfwmd.gov/portal/page/portal/pg_grp_sfwmd_sfer/portlet_prevreport/2013_sfer/v1/chapters/v1_ch3b.pdf

So severe was his marginalization that he was not allowed to work on Florida' s Statewide Mercury TMDL development process or report after the decision was made not to promulgate a revised mercury WQS (water quality standard) based on methyl mercury in fish flesh. http://www.dep.state.fl.us/water/tmdl/docs/tmdls/mercury/Mercury-TMDL.pdf

When Don had had enough, he left FDEP and accepted an appointment at Florida A&M University, where is talents, productivity, and commitment to excellence are appreciated and rewarded instead of squelched and punished.

Don was subsequently replaced as Statewide Mercury Program Coordinator by a hack who is willing and able to shill for Big Sugar's political science to make the downstream Everglades sulfur cycle-mercury cycle link go away. So bad was the first post-Axelrad Chapter 3B that it was widely panned by the same Peer Review Panel that found Don's Florida mercury program and reports world class. http://my.sfwmd.gov/portal/page/portal/xweb%20about%20us/agency%20reports; http://my.sfwmd.gov/portal/page/portal/pg_grp_sfwmd_sfer/portlet_prevreport/2014_sfer/v1/chapters/v1_ch3b.pdf

Don and Curt Pollman have now published a rebuttal to the rubbish being foisted off on the people of the various constituencies of the SFER as sound mercury science when it is not. http://www.pubfacts.com/author/Donald+Axelrad

The beginning of the end for Florida's world-class mercury program and reports began and continued under Jeb Bush, who, as you might recall, was the first Florida governor not to appoint at least one token environmentalist to SFWMD's Governing Board. Unfortunately, unlike Bush, Crist was not a micromanager, so he never called off the dogs, let alone reverse the damage."


Larry E. Fink, M.S.
Waterwise Consulting, LLC

How Accurate is The Miami Herald's Lovefest with Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. By Geniusofdespair

The Miami Herald Lovefest is about this accurate.

Let's ask Michael Schiavo of Clearwater about Jeb (Miami Herald Letter to the editor):

I was disappointed by Michael Putney’s Feb. 6 Other Views column about the legacy of Jeb Bush (First round goes to Jeb, Feb. 4). Putney writes that it was “doctrinaire liberals” who opposed Bush’s involvement in the tragic case of Terri Schiavo — my then-wife.

Who is Putney referring to as the “doctrinaire liberals” who were horrified by the former governor’s intervention in my family’s trauma? The Republican Attorney General Charlie Crist, who refused to take up the governor’s crusade? Republican Senate President Jim King, who fought Bush on passage of “Terri’s Law?” Pinellas County Judge George Greer, a Republican and Southern Baptist, who looked at the evidence of my wife’s case before having his rulings tossed aside by a governor who never met her?

Does he mean me, a registered Republican?

The truth about Jeb Bush is that he used my wife for his own personal political gain. You don’t have to be a doctrinaire liberal to be angry about that. In fact many conservatives were also horrified by Bush’s zealous intervention.

What Bush did was disgraceful and hurtful. He abused the power of government to impose his personal religious beliefs on me and my family. He made life miserable for my family, the doctors and staff at the nursing home, the police — all because he wanted to involve himself in something that both the law and common human decency told him that no government official should have gotten involved in.

And every time he should have stopped, he went further: signing unconstitutional laws; sending state law enforcement to seize my wife; using his brother, the president, to get Congress involved; and making me out to be a monster.

When his own family came under scrutiny, when his daughter was charged with illegally purchasing Xanax, he pleaded for privacy for his family — privacy that he never considered my family to be worthy of.

Jeb Bush had no right to do what he did, and voters should consider what someone who used the power of government to hurt so many would do with the power of the presidency.

Not trusting an elected leader who behaved like Jeb Bush doesn’t make you a conservative or a “doctrinaire liberal.” It makes you a compassionate human being.

FL Congressman Alcee Hastings calls Texas "crazy"! … by gimleteye

I'm pretty sure I woke up thinking what a crazy state, this is. But then Alcee Hastings reminded me there is always someone younger, more beautiful, and more crazy than you.

Big Sugar, the Big Squeeze, and the Everglades … by gimleteye

On Thursday, the governing board of the South Florida Water Management District will meet in Palm Beach. Civic activists, citizens, and environmentalists will urge the District governing board to put on its agenda soon, the decision to purchase the tendered lands of US Sugar.

Although there has been all good cheer from Gov. Scott on the Everglades, there has been no interest either in the Governor's budget or from the District in the single most important step they need to take now: buy more land that is in sugar production south of Lake Okeechobee.

Property ownership map of the EAA

If there is one thing you can do for the Everglades this year, it is to be part of the chorus urging the District's governing board and governor to get on with the business of buying more land in the Everglades Agricultural Area to use for water cleansing marshes.

According to environmental leaders, the only way to protect Florida's devastated estuaries -- the Indian River Lagoon and the Caloosahatchee, that empty to the east and west coast of Florida respectively -- and the Everglades, is to provide enough surface water storage area so that when it rains hard and Lake Okeechobee rises to dangerous levels, the pressure can be siphoned off and polluted waters cleaned.

Instead of cleansing pollution, it is still official state policy to make the Everglades and estuaries take all the pressure from excess rainfall. Call it: The Big Squeeze.

Big Sugar gets all the water it wants, when it wants, and as a result the entire state of Florida suffers. We suffer politically, we suffer economically, and the environment suffers.

In 2008, then Gov. Charlie Crist negotiated with the largest producer of sugar, US Sugar Corp., to buy all its land in the EAA at a cost of over $1.2 billion. Subsequently, Gov. Rick Scott criticized the deal (without first understanding it) and then drastically scaled it back when he was elected in 2010. The option to purchase some 46,000 acres south of the lake expires this October. US Sugar suddenly has cold feet. I'll get to that later.

Everglades activists and concerned citizens will gather at the District in West Palm Beach this week on Feb 12 for the SFWMD Board meeting to urge them to agenda a discussion of the issue and support exercising the option.

If you can't be there, take a few minutes to email each Board member and the governor to tell them how important it is to agenda this item. More details can be found at Rivercrisis.com. Email the members of the Water Management District at:

Daniel Okeefe dokeefe@sfwmd.gov
Kevin Powers kpowers@sfwmd.gov
Rick Barber fbarber@sfwmd.gov
Sandy Batchelor sbatchel@sfwmd.gov
Mitch Hutchcraft mhutchcraft@sfwmd.gov
James J. Moran jmoran@sfwmd.gov
Juan M. Portuondo jportuon@sfwmd.gov
Timothy Sargent tsargent@sfwmd.gov
Glenn J. Waldman gwaldman@sfwmd.gov

What follows is a long explanation and commentary. Everglades leader Maggy Hurchalla writes:

A Compliment for Miami International Airport … by gimleteye

After a 16 hour flight from Doha, Qatar I can report a miracle: an arrival at MIA, moving through passport control, baggage, immigration and customs in record time. In fact, thanks to Qatar Airline's baggage handling, I was able to retrieve luggage faster than I ever did on any American Airlines flight.

I've been flying internationally from MIA for thirty years and have experienced every phase of the airport trying to deal with outdated facilities, baggage retrieval difficulties, growth, and massive, teeth-pulling, hair-wrenching delays at immigration control. And that was BEFORE 9/11. 

After 9/11, MIA was the worst airport in the nation for handling its international customers. (Who can forget the Bush White House letting the Saudis fly away after 9/11 for free, while the rest of the nation was trapped? But I digress…)

Here is my update, and even if it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, it's worth a compliment to MIA.

Travelers used to walk a mile to get to immigration control. On this trip, our plane taxied (at the early side of rush hour), passengers disembarked, and straight up to the people mover (still 1990's technology, but you can't ask for perfection where so many lobbyists are involved), to the escalator straight to passport control and then to baggage claim.

The kiosks for citizens with pre-screened entry cards worked smoothly. No spitting out passports or missing fingerprints. Then sped through immigration with our printed form.

Qatar Airways delivered my luggage quickly. Customs simply scanned the declaration form and the printout from the kiosk and off to the taxi stand.

The taxi driver, by the way, had a machine that could take a credit card! (That's what Uber has done. But the driver hadn't read the manual how to use it. Seriously. We paid cash. So Miami.)

Maybe it was just our lucky day, but I'm practically giddy. Now if American Airlines could only get its act together.

News from Around Miami Dade County. By Geniusofdespair

Stealing: February 5 (from a Rundle Press Release) -

Ram A. Schratter, a former County supervisor with 20 years’ experience in the Internal Services Department’s (ISD’s) former Alarm Unit, was charged today with one count of First Degree Organized Scheme to Defraud and surrendered in Circuit Court. The charges stem from a joint investigation conducted by the Miami-Dade Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office (SAO). The investigation uncovered that Schratter was purchasing security alarm system equipment intended for use in County facilities and diverting the equipment to his private security alarm business, Moon Security Systems, Inc.

Schratter was immediately sentenced and will serve six months in jail followed by six months of house arrest (technically, a total of 12 months of community control), followed by two years of probation. As part of an agreement with the State Attorney’s Office, Schratter was required to pay $200,000 in restitution to the County and costs of investigation to the OIG. Schratter will also forfeit his 20 year County pension and any leave he had accumulated prior to his resignation. In addition, Schratter will be debarred from contracting with the County for a period of 5 years, have to perform 75 hours of community service and cannot hold any public employment until the expiration of his probationary period.

Now why was he allowed to have a private business if he was working full-time for the county? Part of his punishment: He can't work with the county for 5 years? OMG they would hire him again?

Fire Boats:

Miami Dade County moved the Fire Boat serving the North End of the Community South. Commissioner Sally Heyman was not happy as she is Commissioner of all the high-rise communities to the Broward line. She said to the Miami Herald:

“It’s a shame,” said Sally Heyman, a Miami-Dade commissioner whose district includes some of the causeway as well as waterfront cities like North Bay Village and Sunny Isles Beach.

Heyman has been pushing for a fire boat to be deployed even farther north, near the Haulover Inlet, and says the ritzy high-rise canyons and waterfront mansions in her jurisdiction pay enough property taxes to merit a boat nearby.

Heyman  called her district a "donor" community. That means they give more than they take from the county. If one of her waterfront high-rises had a fire on a high floor it would be in deep shit and she would unfairly shoulder the blame and she knows it. She has the area from Aventura to parts of Miami Beach. Gimenez complained the fire boats were not being used. So what? They have to be there as a precaution. Now we have two fire boats almost in sight of each other. That makes no sense. This is the wrong way to run a government. Not everything is there to make money. You need services sometimes that don't make any money.

Tropical Park:

This was on Rebeca Sosa's Facebook Page...

Put the Youth Fair at the North Campus. There is plenty of room there. On the vote, were people made aware that they would be losing green space and that a lake would be filled in? Here is the ballot language you dumb clucks that voted for it:

Charter Amendment Exempting from Article 7 Florida International University’s Expansion onto Youth Fair Site. The Dade County Youth Fair site at Tamiami Park is exempt from the public park purposes use restrictions and construction limitations in Article 7 of the Charter. Shall the Charter be amended to:
•Extend this exemption to Florida International University (FIU) for its expansion onto up to 64 acres of such site upon relocation of the Youth Fair; and
•Provide that no County funds be used for FIU’s expansion and the Youth Fair’s required relocation?

This was terribly worded and had three issues in it. Norman Braman and Raquel Regalado...how about a lawsuit on this one too? Let's throw them all out.

Lester Sola:

Currently tapped to head the Water and Sewer Department with a raise, I found him to be a sub-standard Elections Department head. I think Penelope Townsley is 10 times better at the post. He would send me the stupidest emails that never solved anything.

Lastly, I found this blast from the past (2013) on a selection committee for a  bid from AECOM and CH2M Hill on my computer that should interest someone (not me) Lester Sola was a CC on the memo: