The County Commission's Toxic Vote. By Geniusofdespair

Yes, Steve Bovo, the Chair of the Commission, did a good thing. Bovo wanted to ban lobbyists from the Charter Review Committee. It is bad enough that the Commissioners and the Mayor appoint the people on the charter review committee -- the citizens charter -- but now they are allowing lobbyists on the Committee to propose changes. If we the citizens want to change the Charter we have to do it by petition which is cumbersome because the County Commission added all sorts of crap - we have to have each petition notarized, etc. So this was our only chance to make real changes easily and now it gone.

It is the citizens charter and the changes made will probably be without citizen's input. The only way we have to control it is -- we vote on the changes they propose. And most people out there are pretty stupid so we will get bad changes because they will be written in a form only a lobbyist knows how to understand. And Pepe Diaz is hoping that with the lobbyists they will re-visit term limits. Over my dead body that should happen.

This is Bovo's resolution, it made so much sense:

It says here it was adopted by the BCC and I am pretty sure that is an error. 
There was an attempt by Sosa to salvage the resolution, she amended it to include the following to be banned from serving(they were rejected):

1. Land use attorneys with CDMP or zoning applications in front of the Miami-Dade Commission
2. Political party employees, officers, and officials
3. Candidates for current office
4. Representatives of labor unions that participate in the collective bargaining process with Miami-Dade County
5. Campaign workers, campaign consultants, campaign treasurers, and campaign attorneys.


It was voted DOWN by a vote of 6 to 4.  The 4 who supported it: STEVE BOVO, DANIELLA LEVINE CAVA, AUDREY EDMONSON and XAVIER SUAREZ. THANK YOU.  The rest of you feh!

Fabiola Santiago of the Miami Herald wrote an opinion piece on the vote: Miami-Dade residents don’t stand a chance to be heard when lobbyists write the rules. She calls it "the foxes guarding the hen house:"

This is a county where conflicts of interest and influence peddling rule the day, the week, the month, and most notably, the public agenda.