The Manny Diaz Record. Commissioners: stop spending money we cannot afford, for things we don't need! Invest in what we do need ... by Steve Hagen

NOTE: one of the most damning records of Manny Diaz' tenure as Mayor of Miami is his refusal to listen to citizen advocates like Steve Hagen on the issue of investing in parks instead of Ponzi schemes for developers like Jorge Perez. Diaz is now angling to be the Democratic candidate for governor: we will dedicate our blog to raising public awareness about Diaz' self serving attempts to re-write history so that voters will be informed. In the meantime ...

An open letter to Miami-Dade Mayor and Commissioners as well as Miami Mayor and Commissioners,

Frankly, I think you should reject the request from the Marlins Dolphins for taxpayers to cover half of the project cost. No need for a public vote as it cost at least 3 million we can't afford.
Remember, you have a half billion dollars being spent to cover nearly fifteen acres of Bicentennial Park with museums and that important project is under-funded.

Beside losing half the green space of the park, Miami is scraping around to find money for bare bones landscaping of what remains of the park. This is a real problem that can cause the entire area to fail.

You set priorities. Green parks which are wonderfully landscaped and maintained are part of the rich fabric of a great city, but our parks fail miserable. Bicentennial is headed toward failure if it is not properly landscaped. Do it right this time as it has the lack of landscaping caused it to fail once already. Great parks need to be interesting!

Great parks keep visitors longer in an area be they visitors from around the County or from around the world, the same as culture lovers. Great parks attract great employers with better paying jobs.

The city of Miami Beach and now the city of Miami and County are learning that yes, culture lovers drop off a lot of money in our community. And guess what, it is happening 365 days a year. More would happen with great parks to attend.

Bicentennial Park deserves to be a park that takes at least three hours to see, longer to enjoy. The Cooper Robertson design might take 30 minutes to walk around and if it is reduced because of the budget, Bicentennial will become a fifteen minute park. That will cause locals to be boarded and not return on a daily basis. It will not be much different than our other parks.

PLEASE make certain Bicentennial Park gets the varied lush landscaping it needs. Do not make the mistake of leaving the two museums be the victims of a slashed landscape plan.

In my opinion, both the museums will have a hard enough time attracting locals to return on a regular basis, but the problem will be compounded if leadership does not do a first class job on landscaping the park. Trees and grass and cement walkways will not do the job.

For that entire "attraction, (museums, park, Parcel B and bay walk) to be successful,, it needs locals to populate it 24/7/365. The park and bay walk will be the major players in this attraction as the museums will be mostly day time attractions.

PLEASE, while you ponder if we need to support a billionaires dream, support Bicentennial Park and the millions of Miami-Dade residents who expect and need a great green destination gem on the bay. Yes, it is a need as all Miami-Dade residents especially need to experience the fact that nature is just as important in the well being of an individual and a community as are man made facilities or cultural or athletic activities.

And PLEASE do something green with Parcel B!!!!! It has been over twenty years since Miami residents saw the photo on the front page of the Herald showing it as a green space surrounded with trees. In my opinion, it was that photo that caused Miami voters to approve its sale to the County. Please make it green NOW and protect it forever for residents and tourists to enjoy. No more talk of another museum on that location!!!

Please, get involved in saving Bicentennial from failure. It is a treasure for County residents, not just Miami residents. If it needs private funding, then get behind that. Somebody lead.......Please.

Have you signed the petition: More Parks for Miami NOW

Review, Manny Diaz self serves at Univ of Miami ... By Harry Emilio Gottlieb

I attended last night’s event. It was a Love Fest For Manny. Donna Shalala introduced him and Elizabeth Plater Zyberk interviewed him. Manny looked like he was rehearsing for a job interview with the Obama administration or preparing his spiel for the FL Governor’s race. There was no mention of his support for the Marlins Stadium Funding Fiasco, the illegal rezoning of much of our community like that of the Mercy Hospital property to perpetuate an even greater glut of condos or the dissolving of the Marine Industry on the Miami River for the purpose of Gentrification. There was a brief Q& A. But I was not offered the microphone. Will see if he runs for Governor’s office or gets invited to join the O administration. I hear he cannot get elected to a state wide office. I fear that outside of Miami they will see him as a pretty sophisticated Latino with a lot more charisma and achievements than Rubio. I personally think he has done more harm than good in Miami. Spinning his career as Miami’s Visionary Green and Urbanely Astute Mayor, is a little like praising Romero Britto as Picasso or Andy Warhol!

Manny Diaz angles to be Democratic contender for governor: not in our book! ... by gimleteye

I have been staying out of the controversy of former Miami Mayor Manny Diaz' recent autobiography; a spin job according to those with the time and interest to read it.

I haven't read the Diaz book, because I was never a supporter of the former Miami mayor.  As a civic activist who paid attention to the massive damage Diaz helped proliferate through the housing and building boom, I am disinclined to what I believe to be a self-serving effort to re-write history: approximately the point of reviews.

I am a left-leaning, liberal voice who has never shied from leveling broadsides against Democrats. Yes, the Democrats can win in Florida by running an Hispanic candidate. Manny Diaz is the wrong candidate to raise the flag for the Dems.

Like many other politicians of the 2000's, Diaz coasted on the fuel then the fumes of the building boom.  He was like a Marlin's hitter who raced to third base, celebrating a triple when he hit a pop fly. To the extent that the city of Miami contributed to massive -- multi-billion dollar! -- infrastructure deficits that are now plaguing the county, Diaz was right in the middle of the mess. Taxpayers and voters will have something to say about a Diaz primary campaign.

Diaz and his consultants may be counting on the mainstream press to stay to the glossy top stuff, reinforced by "a book": Cuban American makes good. But the opposition reads this blog, and Eye on Miami will have more ... and our readers, more still ... to say.

Manny Diaz: Busy rewriting history ... by gimleteye

Manny Diaz has a new book heralding his "vision" during two terms as mayor of the city of Miami: a time when growth-on-steroids, fueled by funny money, made nearly every politician in Florida act as though they had scored a touchdown from their own end zone. Certainly the Growth Machine and all its components were on their feet cheering all the way. And why not? They were billing hours and taking commissions like there was no tomorrow.

The former mayor resembles the Miami Marlins, the professional baseball team that can find a silk purse in any sow's ear. Both Manny Diaz and the Miami Marlins are like the 19th century entrepreneurs who put lamps on the Florida coral reef, steering sailors in the dark to promise of safe passage, then when the ships wrecked claimed the ship's contents as their own.

On a cheerier note this Friday, take a look at the best football goal of the year in Europe. During a recent friendly match, Zlatan Ibrahimovich playing for Switzerland Sweden single-handedly beat England with four goals; the first time a player against England had ever scored so many goals in one game. Zlatan is surely the most entertaining giant to ever play professional football who behaves like a Greek god and plays like one often enough to be credible. Maybe on retirement he should move to Miami and run for mayor. This was the last of the four:

A tale of two mayors: Miami Dade Carlos Alvarez and City of Miami Manny Diaz ... by gimleteye

Jim DeFede, reporting for Channel 4 television, also writes a noteworthy column.

"I finally understood how far Alvarez had fallen when I read Myriam Marquez's column (in the Miami Herald) extolling the greatness of Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, whose term in office, she said was "heading toward a strong finish." In the same column she derided Alvarez as "not living up to his promise as a reformer." It was a column about a good mayor and a bad mayor and in Myriam's view Manny Diaz is the good mayor. Manny Diaz – the good mayor? Excuse me a second but while typing that last sentence I threw up a little bit."

DeFede's "Anger Rules the Day in Miami-Dade" is a must read and reminds me how much Miami Herald readers lost when he was forced out of the paper. He doesn't give Alvarez a free-pass: far from it. But he does enumerate why public anger is more appropriately focused on the serious problems in the tenure of Manny Diaz as City of Miami Mayor. That politics is a mess in Miami-- and poorly understood by observers like Marquez-- is no surprise: they were a mess before the economic crash and the crash has only magnified them. But failing to clearly see those political faults BEFORE the crash-- by the mainstream press in general-- has only magnified the blurry images as the crash intensified. There is a lot more to report, why anger rules the day in Miami-Dade. That anger is not going away, any time soon. How that anger is being harnessed by the same forces that unleashed it is well worth consideration by journalists and voters.

Everglades On The Bay: its own chapter in the Age of Stupid ... by gimleteye

A reader of "Everglades On The Bay: Kaput" asked me to post the foto I'd kept of the condo's marketing drivel. The brochure has been by my desk ever since it arrived five or so years ago in the fucked up blizzard of the real estate bubble. Here it is.
Everglades restoration has been a passion as a writer and activist for more than 20 years. In a way, these decades have been spent trying to communicate with a passive and unwilling public why it is important to focus on reforming the interlocking gears of a fraudulent an unsustainable system of managing growth: one that yielded vast private profits while eroding our shared quality of life in Florida at the same time. Readers might wonder what I felt, then, about receiving this marketing mailer for a new condo featuring a sexy model standing in the Everglades; drawing both together as a branding opportunity for a condo tower while the real Everglades was crushed by an unsustainable asset bubble in housing and construction. I felt (thanks for asking!): what a pile of crap. Like sugar barons marketing sugarcane at Winn Dixie as "green" and "environmentally friendly". No one knows, because no one is paying attention. A few of our readers do. It is simply the fact that the success of the Growth Machine in Florida depended on the public not receiving information-- from television and newspapers primarily-- in a way that might otherwise have generated resistance. Now, the Everglades and the environment generally is an even lower level of concern: the public is wrapped up in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Still I keep this missive from the past by my desk. Here's more how that hooey, then, matches up to reality, now. (click, 'read more')

"It's the triumphant return of an endangered species. Introducing Everglades On The Bay". (Marketing brochure)

"The maker of Everglades on the Bay — a condo project whose darkened windows have become emblematic of the uninhabited, ghost structures of the building boom gone bust — has become the first of the downtown Miami condo developers to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection." ("Everglades on the Bay Developer Files for Bankruptcy, Miami Herald, August 21, 2009)

"In 2003, Cabi launched the Everglades condo, which has three swimming pools. Initially it was well-received and pre-sold 93 percent of of its units, according to the developer. But by the time it opened last year, buyers refused to pay prebust prices and canceled in droves, according to the project's bankruptcy filing." ("Family faces problems in US", Wall Street Journal, Sept. 2, 2009)

"Everglades On The Bay boasts sophisticated studios, lofts and one, two and three bedroom condominiums. Sweeping views of the city and Biscayne Bay." (Marketing brochure)

"Peter Zalewski, principal with Condo Vultures, ... said the bankruptcy at Everglades on the Bay would spark a flurry of offers from buyers interested in large portions of the Class A project, or the entire project itself. (Miami Herald)

"Playful. Vibrant. Simple, yet complex. These are just a few words to describe the celebrated works of pop artist Romero Britto. But they also capture the spirit of Miami. It was only natural that he would become a part of the renaissance of his new hometown, at Everglades On The Bay." (Marketing brochure)

"It's going to be a door buster — the fact that 9 percent of the project is closed makes it so appealing.'' (Miami Herald)

"The contrasting worlds of high finance and a thriving arts community meet for lunch al fresco. And every evening, breathtaking sunsets give way to a mixed media of stars and city lights. (Marketing brochure)

"The Cababie family, of Mexico's well known Grupo Gicsa development company, is potentially on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of personal guarantees ..." (Wall Street Journal)

"This is the New Miami, as seen from Everglades On The Bay. A truly contemporary work of art." (Marketing brochure)

Maybe the banks will take Britto's paintings as collateral, or, Miami mayor Manny Diaz' word that we are all better for the thousands of empty condo units zoned and permitted on his watch that will be sold for cents on the dollar, backstopped by US taxpayers, without a hint of regret or smidgeon of doubt, reflecting in their see-thru perversity the actual state of the Everglades. Not the bankrupt condo. That other busted place.

Miami 21: now that the tide has retreated, what the sea bottom looks like ... by gimleteye

Mayor Manny Diaz came to the executive office of Miami with so much promise. He did not, however, understand how to wield the power of his bully pulpit. Or, if he did understand, the building boom he represented for much of his life as mayor claimed him as the first political victim. Yesterday's vote to reject a new zoning code is a great disappointment for the future growth pattern of the city. It also shows how political leaders decide to exercise their authority.

The vote against Miami 21 had, in the end, less to do with the mayor than with the battle between his presumptive successors, city commissioners Joe Sanchez and Tomas Regalado. Sanchez, who had been a loyal ally of Diaz' through the building boom that is now in cinders, finds himself under great pressure to distance himself from the fiscal emergency engulfing the city, largely because pro-growth commissioners allowed the public interest to be steamrollered by land speculators and their lobbyists-- building far out of proportion to historical trends.

Diaz spent his political capital on getting the Marlins Stadium deal done and the grand vision for billions of dollars of new infrastructure including the tunnel to serve the Seaport. But he had the sequencing wrong. He should have pushed Miami 21 first and kept it away from the politics of his successor's race. In this matter of political judgment, Mayor Diaz failed.

Diaz told the Herald, "We owe a lasting legacy to those who will call Miami home long after we're gone,'' Diaz said earlier in the day, saying the plan could help Miami draw comparison to New York and Chicago in coming decades." But Miami is not going to be New York or Chicago in any progressive sense of comparison because the Growth Machine and speculators extracted every last dollar from zoning and permitting during the biggest boom in Florida' history. The other day, I referred to Miami as a third-tier American city. I don't believe I'm far off in this assessment.

The regrettable Diaz legacy for Miami is a warren of see-through condos, a paucity of public space linking commerce and consumers, a vision that is as unattractive as it is unlikely to be financed, all beneath a scrim of greenwashing that leaves the city without a heritage of a people-friendly, transit-friendly, water-access friendly place; features that Miami 21 could have helped. It didn't have to happen this way, but the influence of building and development trades was overpowering: stronger than Major League Baseball on steroids.

I've never talked to Mayor Diaz, but observed him and city commissioners during the heyday of the building boom fawned over by developers and celebrities and wealthy supporters. Perhaps it is inevitable that power creates a bubble through which opposing points of view are so marginalized that they never even surface for consideration. (That certainly is the point of view of Jared Diamond in "Collapse": how societies choose to fail or succeed".)

If Miami 21 had come before the Marlins' deal, it would have sent a clear and unequivocal signal to the developer/speculator lobby that the needs of taxpayers and citizens would come first. But if Miami 21 had failed, under those circumstances, perhaps the thinking at City Hall was that the Marlins' deal could also be crushed.

It is always about leadership. The simple fact is that the cratered economy in a region that is defined by more people and more growth has left a political vacuum. Will voters be energized to hold accountable incumbents, like Sanchez, who never saw a zoning proposal for a downtown high rise that he didn't like? And who is there, among the candidates, to push forward needed reforms of the zoning code? Is Miami destined to become a sea water Detroit or Biloxi?

The mainstream press can't summon the will to be as brutally honest on the real, political predicament the building boom caused, or, how the Greenberg Traurig/downtown lobbying corps is largely responsible for marginalizing any and all opposition that might have arisen. In this respect, the battle to protect the county's Urban Development Boundary is instructive: the Neisen Kasdins, the Diaz de la Portillas, the Miguel De Grandys and Juan Mayols: they could not make the entire state political apparatus or the judiciary bend to their will and eventually, over a very long period of years, a judgement was rendered against the forms of growth that have imposed such huge costs on taxpayers and voters. (Did the Herald or Miami Today give a single story to the Hold The Line Campaigners who prevailed? No. And it is in the absence of coverage of critics-- or simply capturing them as "NIMBY's", that the public is largely unaware of other points of view that could prevail under the right circumstances.)

The UDB victory, such as it is, happened far, far from the voting booth where county and city elected leaders will compete. It takes a lot of guts to stand up to a wealthy and battle-hardened status quo. Florida politics, including Miami's, is all about keeping the same characters in power, the same speculators in the game, and the same gut reaction that "property rights" trumps every other consideration of the public commons except those that can be extracted from the law at a very, very long distance from a sleepy, dreamy public that will take the cash but would be just as happy with the cash and its clunkers back.

Depression.org ... by gimleteye

If you want to know why the stock market is plunging, it is because the world is caught between President Obama's assurance that the trillion dollar stimulus-- the first of several initatives-- is the beginning of the end of our economic troubles and the worry, expressed by numerous observers, that it could also be the beginning of the unravelling of the world economy: a Depression.

This is not a matter interpreting whether the stimulus glass is half-empty, or, half-full.

To give the public confidence that we are not pouring money down that black hole (and to help buoy stock markets around the world), the list of stimulus targets must be strongly balanced to reflect that public money will be spent to fundamentally rework our economy to make products that people need, recreating long-term and sustainable jobs based on a new energy model. If it is all repaving and road and bridge contracts, we are headed to a Depression. (hit read more.)

I am not reassured by the project list assembled from the US Conference of Mayors Report (whose chair is Miami Mayor Manny Diaz). For Miami-Dade, the list totals $7 billion: the number I've used to summarize the infrastructure "deficit" that has been held closely guarded as a state secret by the county manager for years.

There is a new website called stimuluswatch.org that appears to be an honest effort by independent researchers to inform the public: this is the list of "shovel ready" projects that could be funded through the stimulus bill just signed into law by President Obama. I've taken a quick look. It's a bonanza windfall for cement manufacturers and road pavers, as I suspected it would be and cautioned against. It is for workers with shovels and heavy construction equipment.

Take a look for yourselves.

Let me put this as succinctly as possible: these projects, nearly all of them with the exception of the water treatment facilities, may be "shovel-ready" but they really represent icing on a cake that doesn't exist. The "cake" itself is where the stimulus money should be directed: build new jobs and economic drivers. What the list reflects is the absence of both imagination and a sense of urgency tied to the current reality: we are on the cusp of a Depression.

Carl Hiassen put it simply, in The Miami Herald: "Developers have controlled state and county governments for so long that no Plan B exists." Hiassen is right. If you look closely at the list, it clearly shows there is no Plan B.

"Lost and clueless, lawmakers desperately hack away at public budgets while clinging to the hope that boom times will return."

The list of projects on Stimuluswatch.org basically lay out the red carpet for the return of the boom times, without adding a single cent or inkling where the boom times will come from.

Repaving roads and bridges and so forth may be a quick stimulus to improve infrastructure, but these economic activities do not get at making things that people need. These products most certainly will not come from thin air, or, from the inflation of developers' expectation that a new market for suburbs or platted subdivisions in farmland will suddenly materialize. It ain't gonna happen.

It's over. Throwing money at road paving contracts is maybe what you do after a Depression and you have to thin the soup and bread kitchen lines. We're not there yet, but if the list from Miami-Dade is any indication and if this is where the stimulus money goes: we are headed in that direction.

Manny Diaz Term is Winding Down. By Geniusofdespair

Harry Emilio Gottlieb summed up the diminishing term of Miami Mayor Manny Diaz in this cartoon:

Manny Diaz, Jeb Bush: change we cannot believe in ... by gimleteye

Miami Mayor Manny Diaz must feel blind-sided by the furor over his possible appointment to an Obama Cabinet-level position ("Mayor Diaz facing a backlash over a Cabinet post", Miami Herald, December 5, 2008). The AFL-CIO is objecting to Diaz on several counts. The clearest is Diaz's role in the response by law enforcement to the 2003 Free Trade of the Americas Summit meeting in downtown Miami. There are other reasons to get to, in due course.

The 2003 FTAA meeting-- and prospective establishment of a permanent FTAA secretariat to Miami-- deserves historical context. It was meant to be a colorful feather in the cap for then-Governor Jeb Bush; a signature moment for his second term that would open business opportunity to those empty lots in Miami's downtown core and campaign contributors from the development community.

The building and construction boom was in full swing. There was nothing but blue sky on the horizon. Jeb prevailed on Mayor Diaz to support a massive show of police force against arrayed demonstrators including the retired, school teachers and students, environmentalists, civic activists, and-- to the point-- members of the AFL-CIO anxious to protect the middle class jobs that were under assault by the new wealth economy built on outrageous and excessive debt.

From his first day in public office, Jeb had been working from the Karl Rove playbook and its strategic vision described so vividly in an interview with New York Times writer Ron Suskind at the time: "... guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

At the FTAA summit in Miami, Jeb and Mayor Diaz were on the same page: there would be no question how their respective administrations would project security. Miami would not be a Seattle or Rome where demonstrations made the front page of news reports around the world, forcing the perception of reality in directions off-script. They were determined to show that Miami and its then-booming downtown district would be safer than any Latin American capitals the visiting guests called home. And it back-fired.

Diaz asks the Herald, "Can something like that be absolutely perfect. I don't think so." But if the governmental response to security at the FTAA was "absolutely" anything: it was absolutely a disaster. It was an outsized show of force, ill-coordinated law enforcement driving hapless, peaceful demonstrators to the ground and worse. Mayor Diaz can't squirt out from history any more than the former governor in respect to the new political reality that does not conform, in the slightest respect, to the equations that held only a few years ago.

But the bigger issue-- especially in respect to a possible HUD appointment for Diaz-- is the urban landscape of Miami itself, and its thousands of vacant condominiums. What materialized as dead, collateralized debt on some distant investor's books is still being held as a paragon of success instead of a remainder bin of the housing bust where "make an offer, any offer" commands respect.

Neisen Kasdin, the builders' lobbyist and former mayor of Miami Beach, says Miami's building boom bolsters Diaz's qualifications to lead HUD; I'm not sure what statistical record he's looking at. "The repopulation of downtown Miami has been an unqualified success," Kasdin says and then he is quoted immediately after, "Perfect? No, but unquestionably a success."

Well, if one were skeptical, it would be natural to ask Kasdin how do you go from "unqualified success" to "unquestionably an imperfect success" in two sentences? Only by deforming logic, or, believing that no one pays attention.

This is, you see, the problem wrapped up in the housing market implosion that Mayor Diaz regrettably stands for, next to former Governor Bush. Its political origins were here in Miami, where downtown "environmental land use" lawyers, bankers, and builders-- threw their full weight behind the city and county commission and the Florida legislature to pave the way for the asset bubble in construction and development and, now, its implosion.

"Until the financial crisis, we had an unemployment rate in Miami of 4 percent," Diaz told the Herald as if griping what does the AFL-CIO have to complain about?

But if we have learned any lesson from the housing market crash in South Florida; there are big problems with growth that is not organic to the nature of a city or neighborhoods. As for jobs in construction, they come and go and do not substantially improve the economy unless the underpinning economic activity is secure. In Miami, it is not. The lack of planning, of infrastructure, of parks and public spaces are the other legacy of the building boom.

The new leader of HUD should not come from the old order that supervised the massive mistakes as a result of a now-discredited growth model.

In so many respects, both Mayor Diaz and former Governor Bush are confronting the realities of a pass-through economy whose foundation in the past decade was built on the ethereal fabrications of debt-- such as that sold by Lehman Brothers; one of Jeb's first clients when he left the Governor's Mansion.

Today, Jeb refuses to answer what exactly he did for Lehman Brothers and whether his influence helped direct public investment toward any of the billions in the State Administration Funds that are now "segregated"; ie. toxic and illiquid. Both Jeb and Mayor Diaz would like to run from accountability for the current economy, as though the ill winds sweeping through our city and county and state are naturally occurring atmospheric events; how could mere humans be held accountable for so much financial pain and economic turmoil?

On Manny Diaz, Defede gets it right... by gimleteye

Good to see Fred Frost with Defede's lead quote: but I wonder why Frost is completely AWOL on criticizing the elected official much more critical to their members' future: County Commissioner Natacha Seijas whose growth-at-any-cost policies have kept union members strapped to their cars for long and expensive commutes from distant home to places of work. While it is true that Seijas is on no one's short list for advancement, still it would be good to see some fresh thinking from the unions on their blind support for her.

DeFede: Diaz Faces Tough Fight For Cabinet Post
Fred Frost, the South Florida head of the AFL-CIO is not thrilled with the prospect of Miami Mayor Manny Diaz being considered for a cabinet position in the Obama Administration.

Nov 21, 2008 3:35 pm US/Eastern
DeFede: Diaz Faces Tough Fight For Cabinet Post
Fred Frost, the South Florida head of the AFL-CIO is not thrilled with the prospect of Miami Mayor Manny Diaz being considered for a cabinet position in the Obama Administration.

"We're not happy," Frost told me Friday morning. "If anyone from the Obama campaign were to ask, we'd tell them not to expect a ringing endorsement from us. He has shown poor judgment when it comes to trade agreements and stood back and did nothing while union workers were being brutalized during the FTAA."

Downtown Miami was turned into a virtual police state during the 2003 Free Trade Area of the Americas summit, with police accused of indiscriminately assaulting protesters, including retired union workers who had traveled to Miami from around the country to speak out against the trade agreement.

The city's Civilian Investigative Panel condemned the police conduct during the summit saying the police reacted with an "unrestrained and disproportionate use of force" and that "civil rights were trampled." The city was been forced to settle numerous lawsuits with individuals hurt or wrongly arrested by police.

"Manny Diaz has never apologized, never addressed what happened during the FTAA," Frost said. "He refused to meet with us to talk about it."

Last year, the AFL-CIO and the Florida Alliance of Retired Americans, filed a lawsuit against the City of Miami. That lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial early next year. Which means if Diaz is named to the cabinet he would be going through confirmation hearings in the U.S. Senate around the same time he would be required to appear in court to defend himself against the union's claims he violated their First, Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth amendment rights.

Frost also complained that Diaz has failed to pay workers in the city fairly. "We passed a living wage ordinance but the city never enforced it," he said. "We had to take it to a lawsuit to get the city to do what was right. That kind of stuff bothers me. I have a problem with that."

Frost's troubling comments come at a time when Diaz is under serious consideration for a high level cabinet post.

Two senior Democratic sources advising the Obama transition team tell CBS4 News that Diaz is one of the leading candidates for the Housing and Urban Development job and is also under consideration to be Transportation Secretary.

"Is it real? Yes it is," one of the senior Democrats told me, adding he believed the HUD job was more likely to happen. "I think he has a lot to offer."

Politically, appointing Diaz would serve two very pressing desires of the Obama team – the need to name a high profile Hispanic to the cabinet and the desire to reward Florida with a cabinet position.

"I think it is important for Florida to be represented in the cabinet," the Democratic source said. "And I don't see another Florida Democrat that qualifies."

The dearth of Florida Democrats comes from the fact that most of the well-known individuals who could be called on to take a cabinet post are members of Congress and are unlikely to want to give up their seats.

It is the need to appoint a Hispanic to the cabinet, however, that is really driving Diaz's name within the Obama camp. The Hispanic vote was critical to Obama's election and he has pledged to create a cabinet as diverse as the people who elected him.

"Manny is just lucky he is a Hispanic Democrat with a high profile," said the second Democrat advising the transition.

Ten days ago, Diaz's name was mentioned in connection with a new post Obama is planning to create, the White House Office of Urban Policy. With Diaz's background as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, such a job would seem a good fit for Diaz.

But with Hillary Clinton now in line to be Secretary of State, beating out New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson for the post, Diaz's name was suddenly elevated to cabinet consideration (Further complicating matters, late Friday the Washington Post reported Richardson may be named Commerce Secretary.)

"This is all happening very fast," said the second Democrat. "And what is really happening here is that Manny is promoting himself, through the U.S. Conference of Mayors, trying to get an appointment."

This Florida Democrat, as well as others I have spoken to, expressed concern with Diaz, calling Diaz "a Johnny-come-lately" to the Obama campaign. During the primary, Diaz supported Hillary Clinton. And even after Obama won the nomination, Diaz held back his endorsement for a long time. In fact, Diaz was one of the few – if not the only – speaker at the Democratic National Convention in Denver who did not endorse the Democratic nominee during his speech to the convention delegates.

Diaz waited until the closing weeks of the campaign to endorse Obama.

"Manny is going to have a tough time making it through the vetting process," the second Democrat said.

The vetting process for all cabinet appointees is extensive. In addition to a 60-page questionnaire, which delves into all of the nominee's financial dealings and business relationships, it also involves a background check by the FBI, including FBI agents interviewing friends, associates, and even neighbors of the nominee.

Diaz has faced questions about his ethics in recent years. His decision to own a restaurant housed on city land raised one set of concerns, but that was nothing compared to the revelation back in 2004 that the mayor's restaurant was behind almost $200,000 in rent payments to the city, that it owed the county nearly $100,000 in delinquent property taxes and that it had stiffed the state almost $250,000 in sales tax payments.

It was only after I reported those problems four years ago that the mayor sold his stake in the restaurant.

The mayor's relationship with city hall lobbyist Steve Marin will also be an area for the feds to review. Marin, a close friend of Diaz, received several no-bid contracts from the city.

Then of course there is the debacle surrounding the city's efforts to settle the infamous Fire Rescue Fee case, in which Manny Diaz and then city manager Joe Arriola were either duped into paying a handful of people $7 million or were complicit in the outrageous deal. Either way the case does not reflect well on Diaz's judgment or ability.

There will be other issues, as well, including his decision to enter into a multi-million dollar land deal with then city manager Arriola and Johnny Winton, who was a city commissioner at the time. The three waited months to disclose their private business dealings, and in the meantime, Arriola and Winton engineered a $53,000 pay raise for the mayor, ramming it through the city commission without any advance notice or allowing the public to speak on it.

In 2007, Diaz was charged with violating the conflict-of-interest provisions of the County's Ethics Ordinance because of the land deal with Winton and Arriola. He pleaded "no contest" and was found guilty by the Commission on Ethics and Public Trust. Diaz was fined $250 and given a letter of reprimand.

But ultimately, it could be Diaz's problems with organized labor that may cause him the most trouble. Frost was on the phone today with national union officials discussing what to do about Diaz's name being mentioned for a cabinet position.

When the local AFL-CIO filed its lawsuit against the city, it was the union's national leadership that gave it the green light.

Frost asked the question: Can Obama really appoint someone to the cabinet that the largest labor union in the country is actively suing for beating, tear gassing and brutalizing its retired workers?

It was Diaz, after all, who hailed the police response during the summit a success and gave it the name, "The Miami Model." That term, the Miami Model, is now a source of scorn within the labor movement and was derided on editorial pages around the country. The Miami Model earned Diaz a special place in labor's memory. It now all depends on how long a memory they have.

Several years ago, I interviewed Richard Trumka, a former coal miner who had risen to through the ranks of labor to become the national Secretary and Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, a position he still holds today.

Trumka, one of the most powerful men in the labor movement, repeatedly singled out Manny Diaz for contempt when I spoke to him in December 2003. He was furious Diaz refused to meet with him and other members of organized labor after the FTAA debacle. He said Diaz "had an obligation" to hear from the workers who were abused. "[Diaz] had a chance to stand up for freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and [he] took a pass," Trumka said.

He told me back then Diaz made "a big mistake" by rebuffing labor. And then he promised: "We're not going away."

Five years later, we'll see if that's true.

Is Mayor Diaz going to Washington? by gimleteye

Is Miami Mayor Manny Diaz going to Washington? If you were President-elect Obama, what would you ask him? Let's start by asking about his concrete achievements. Readers?

Humanity's last innings: if our coral reef was a baseball stadium... by gimleteye

There is a lot to be indignant about. The price of gasoline. The cost of the housing market crash, foreclosures and the slow motion implosion of the financial system, brought on by the party of so-called fiscal conservatism.

In Miami, politicians like the green Mayor of Miami Manny Diaz have circled their wagons around a $3 billion plan to build more attractions, including a professional baseball stadium at terms that guarantee a financial windfall for the private owners of The Florida Marlins.

I wish our coral reef were a baseball stadium.

If our coral reef were a baseball stadium, then politicians would be advocating for a $36 dollar tax on our water service to finance the $1.75 billion buyout of US Sugar plus whatever it costs to make sure that water reaching the Everglades is clean and not polluted with nutrients instead of a $3 billion plan for infrastructure including benefits accruing to one baseball team in Miami.

I guess that is the point, isn't it: there is no payout from the coral reef you can see for free the way there is from contractors and engineering firms stretching change orders to the horizon.

In Miami-Dade alone, never mind the $3 billion Megaplan, county agencies have listed more than $6 billion in infrastructure backlogs-- not even including the upgrades promised to water and wastewater infrastructure.

The immutable law of America's dysfunctional dream is that the Growth Machine makes money wrecking the natural landscape and makes more money trying to fix its mistakes. This is not a law that nature abides.

The cost per taxpayer in South Florida to view a healthy coral reef-- in other words, to fix the pollution by agriculture and the cities--is probably on the order of a ticket price along the first base line to a Marlins game.

$36 to finance the buyout of 175,000 acres of US Sugar lands is less than the cost of a bleacher seat per taxpayer.

It is time for government scientists and policy makers to stop spending time giving each other awards and in hotel conference talking about the reef--and start arguing the radical consequences of misplaced public priorities.

Imagine if a policy maker from NOAA or the US EPA of the US Army Corps of Engineers would explain that sports and their enthusiasts embody ideals we value, but that fixing the Everglades and coral reef embodies the requirements of the environment we need to survive.
We can do without a new baseball stadium, in other words. But the coral reef is another matter: I would gladly pay money I am spending through my taxes to fund the war in Iraq, highways and roadways and other "necessities", in order to assure that these photos of the coral reef, taken just last weekend in the pristine backcountry of Big Pine Key, are just a bad dream and not a forecast of humanity's last innings.

Consider tax increase with U.S. Sugar deal

Palm Beach Post Editorial

Friday, July 18, 2008

The euphoria over Florida's proposed $1.75 billion deal to buy U.S. Sugar Corp. land for Everglades restoration is evaporating as hard realities become apparent.

The South Florida Water Management District wants to make the purchase for the state without raising taxes on residents in the district's 16 counties. Given the price, that no-new taxes approach seemed unrealistic when the deal was announced on June 23, and it looks even less realistic now.

Part of the cost for buying U.S. Sugar - contract negotiations will be done in early September - would be shrinking or postponing restoration projects already in the works or trying to get the federal government to pay for them. The Miccosukee Indian Tribe already has signaled its concern by filing a motion before U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno. He is supervising the ongoing Everglades water cleanup, and the tribe wants him to make the district finish building the Everglades Agricultural Area reservoir. It is part of the state's Acceler8 plan to speed up restoration.

The Miccosukees have fought since 1989 in federal court to make the district meet water quality limits and cleanup deadlines. "The state is always promising to do something for the Everglades 10 years later," the tribe's attorney, Dexter Lehtinen, said. " ... The Everglades is dying now, not 10 years from now."

Stopping construction on that reservoir and others near the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers could mean more dirty water sent to coastal estuaries or tribal lands. Yet district board members won't consider even a tiny tax increase to ensure that vital projects keep going. While no one will confirm it on the record, the reason almost certainly is that Gov. Crist campaigned on a no-new-taxes platform, and even a needed tax increase could hurt his chance of becoming John McCain's running mate.

But come on. The water district's current tax rate is 62 cents per $1,000 of taxable value - $124 on a home assessed at $200,000. A return to the 2006 rate of 69 cents would cost that homeowner another $14. Going to 80 cents, which the district can do without legislative approval, would cost another $36.

The district's answer is that the federal government finally should start to pay its 50 percent share for Everglades restoration. If Florida is a battleground state, John McCain and Barack Obama might indeed make a commitment - as President Bush did - and actually honor it - as President Bush hasn't.

But Florida can't just assume that Washington would come through. As promising as the U.S. Sugar deal sounds, the state was just as enthusiastic in 2004 about its Acceler8 plan to fast-track restoration.

The district also contends that with the U.S. Sugar land, other projects - such as that key reservoir - might not be needed. There is a separate lawsuit over that reservoir. During a hearing on it Thursday, U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks asked whether the suit was being overtaken by events. Maybe so.

Or maybe the water district is trying to do too much with too little. The district's final budget hearing is in late September. If a tax increase is necessary to buy U.S. Sugar and continue vital projects, that extra $14 would be worth it.

Let the people enjoy it, by gimleteye

George Burgess, Miami-Dade County Manager, spoke from the witness stand yesterday in the lawsuit brought by Norman Braman against the $3 Billion Megaplan about the logic behind public subsidies for the stadium sought by the Florida Marlins. As reported by The Miami Herald, his choice of words echo back to the Roman Empire.

''The mayor's objective -- and the mayor couldn't have been more clear -- was to be able to build a stadium and keep the Florida Marlins in South Florida and let the people enjoy it,'' Burgess testified, referring to county Mayor Carlos Alvarez. "That's what drove our thinking. Not whether the team netted X amount or Y amount of dollars.''

In a more benign configuration, it means civic pride. But the exact order of the words, "Let the people enjoy it", speaks of the same arrogance of power that goes along with a permanent incumbency, believing that people do not know what is best for them.

"Let the people enjoy it," you can hear in those words the functionaries and the emperors, who kept crowds at the colosseum sated while the empire crumbled around them.

To me, the spectacle of half-grown men paid tens of millions of dollars to chase balls while teachers, nurses, and workers struggle to pay the electricity bill or mortgage or simply keep up with inflation: these are reason enough to condemn the public subsidies of the Megaplan.

If the Marlins want a new colosseum, let them pay for it. Don't put my money or the public money anywhere near it. And for God's sakes, don't start crying about the need for jobs. Click on read more, for the Wall Street Journal's take on the false promise of jobs and sports stadiums, just yesterday.


July 17, 2008

If You Build It, the Jobs Won't Come
By MARK YOST
July 17, 2008; Page D9
Washington

Just a few years ago, the corner of M Street and New Jersey Avenue was not somewhere you wanted to be after dark. It was part of Washington's notorious Southeast neighborhood, rife with drugs, crime and poverty. But today, about 30,000 baseball fans flock here 80 nights a year to watch the Washington Nationals play in their new $611 million stadium.

While the neighborhood is certainly undergoing a renaissance, what's uncertain is how much credit should go to the ballpark. It's a question that has been debated countless times before, over other stadiums, but the historical evidence is pretty clear.

Sports economists have long argued that publicly financed stadiums are a waste of taxpayer money. And they have the data to prove it.

Yes, stadiums do create high-paying construction jobs for a year or two. But the vast majority of long-term employment is low-wage concession jobs. A Congressional Research Service study of the Baltimore Ravens stadium found that each job created cost the state $127,000. By comparison, Maryland's Sunny Day Fund created jobs for about $6,000 each.

"Walk a few blocks away from the stadiums and you'll see the net economic impact of both the Ravens' stadium and Camden Yards," said Neil deMause, author of "Field of Schemes," a book and Web site devoted to the false promises of publicly financed sports stadiums. "Both have produced a plethora of pawn shops and dollar stores." A 1998 report by the New York City Independent Budget Office found no "economic rationale for assuming that building any new stadium would itself spur construction of office towers and hotels. Total output resulting from the presence of the teams in the city amounts to less than one tenth of one percent of the economic activity in New York City."

Even the economic impact of the team's highest-paid employees, the ballplayers, is sometimes muted. Many have off-season homes in another city, where they pay taxes on their millions. And cities like Cleveland have sued to force visiting athletes pay local income taxes.

Then there's the fact that only a sliver of the tax base really benefits from a sports stadium. And with ticket prices rising rapidly, that group is getting much smaller.

Consider the New York Yankees, who have the highest payroll in baseball and take in more than $300 million a year just from their television network. They'll move into a new $1 billion stadium next year, about half of which was covered by the taxpayers. Seats behind home plate that cost $250 this year will be ten times that next year. The net result is that very few of the people who paid for the stadium will be able to afford a seat there.

But perhaps the best argument against publicly financed stadiums is straight out of Econ 101: Opportunity cost.

"What else could the city have invested its money in and what kind of a return would it have produced?" said King Banaian, chairman of the St. Cloud State (Minn.) Economics Dept. Despite reams of evidence to the contrary, the District proceeded with what Councilman Kwame Brown calls "the most controversial project in the history of the city."

It was controversial, he said, because the city had more pressing needs. The city's schools are in shambles; crime is out of control; and unemployment in distressed neighborhoods, like Southeast, is double the national average, if not higher.

The city did put strict conditions on building the stadium. For instance, as much work as possible had to go to local laborers and businesses. For the most part, that happened, but contractors were hampered by a lack of skilled laborers in the District. Today, about 68% of the stadium workers are D.C. residents, and local companies operate about 25% of the concessions.

During a walk through the neighborhood on Saturday, Councilman Brown, who was originally against the stadium, proudly pointed to the development that has started to transform the once-blighted neighborhood. The centerpiece is the new Department of Transportation headquarters, which brings 7,000 people into the neighborhood every workday. And there are $600,000 condos going up, but some of those projects have been stopped by the nationwide downturn in real estate.

Councilman Brown admits that the stadium doesn't deserve all the credit for the turnaround, but echoing many of his colleagues says, "Without it we wouldn't be anywhere near where we are today."

Walking a few blocks to the leafy green Capitol Hill neighborhood, where townhouses sell for $1 million or more, Mr. Brown says he hopes that one day Southeast will command such hefty prices. He also points to the once-notorious neighborhood around 8th and I streets, where even the Marine barracks used to get robbed. Today, the gentrified neighborhood is known as Barracks Row, abuzz with hip young urbanites strolling between local bars, restaurants and small businesses.

In defending the city's decision, Councilman Brown points out that on the same day the City Council approved funding for the stadium, it also earmarked $1 billion to upgrade D.C. schools, including $58 million for a new high school for construction trades and architectural design. And under terms of the deal, the city expects to see about $40 million a year in revenue. The smallest portion will come from the team, which is supposed to pay $5.5 million a year in rent. But just this week the Nationals began withholding payments, saying the city had failed to "complete" the stadium.

The vast majority of income is expected to come from the same people who financed the stadium: the taxpayers. An estimated $14 million a year is projected from taxes on tickets, concessions and merchandise. Another $24 million will come from a new stadium tax on D.C. businesses with gross revenues of $3 million or more. Indeed, with the exception of some housing and small businesses that have moved into the neighborhood, the vast majority of the "development" in Southeast is nothing more than taxpayer-funded public works projects.

So in the end, what did the taxpayers get other than a bill for $611 million? The Washington National's Web site advertises jobs for elevator operators, fan ambassadors and security guards. The pay is $7.50-$8.50 an hour.

Mr. Yost is a writer in Chicago.

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121625362443460331.html

Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

For Demagogue of the Year: Ed Swift of Key West by gimleteye

It’s too early to vote for demagogue of the year. But we can collect candidates.

Last year was a banner year for demagogues in Miami and Miami-Dade county: any county commissioner qualifies who professed heartfelt concern for water supply, incorporated in the 20 year consumptive use permit from the state that took more than four years to negotiate because the county had so seriously lagged in its obligations under the law, yet voted to move the Urban Development Boundary, or, city commissioner who voted build more condos on the bay—like the Related Group’s at Mercy Hospital.

Take note, Miami Mayor Diaz—Vice President of and 2008 host of the US Conference of Mayors annual meeting in Miami. The authoritative source on “greenwashing” (a sub-heading, of demagoguery) is Harry Emilio Gottlieb, who on Earth Day 2007 wrote on the blog, transitmiami:



Mayor Diaz has almost single-handedly been the driving force for the over building and glut of unnecessary homes, condos and offices in our community. This has resulted in the total disregard for our zoning codes, destruction of neighborhoods, disrespect for citizens, increased traffic, increased demand on potable water, electricity, sewage and flood control systems.

Today, Diaz will host an invitation-only environmental event -- the PODER New America Alliance Green Forum. The forum was initially planned for Miami City Hall but was relocated to the Miami Museum of Science Planetarium because the list of attendees kept growing. Those attendees include Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, Wal-Mart Vice President Andrew Ruben, and the Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker himself -- former Vice President Al Gore.”
I wonder how many VIP’s will be fighting over the front row seats at this “Hot Ticket” event. With all of those many folks responsible for spot-zoning, up-zoning, variances and special permits, which include developers, lobbyists, attorneys, City of Miami and Miami-Dade County elected officials, it cold get petty nasty fighting over those precious front row seats.
The reason for all of this "Going Green" is because that is the color of money.

Who remembers that Gore never showed up, because of the controversy over Uribe’s appearance? But memory is important. Otherwise these fine details disappear in the crush of events, a fine segue to today’s candidate for demagogue of the year, Key West businessman, Chamber of Commerce mouth piece, and Growth Machine representative, Ed Swift III.

On Feb 15, The Miami Herald letters page featured Mr. Swift’s, “Apply wastewater rules equally”.

Mr. Swift raps Miami Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties for shipping its pollution to the Keys waters. Here is an excerpt: “How does it make any sense that our nearest neighbors continue with seeming impunity to dump their waste into the same waters that our national marine sanctuary purports to protect and that we in the Keys are required to protect by meeting strict waste-disposal criteria?” (the full text of the Swift letter is re-printed, below)

Mr. Swift is as correct about our abuses of water quality as Mayor Diaz is right in the elements he supports for greening Miami. But actions belie words.

In his business career, Mr. Swift and his pro-growth nonsense single-handedly turned a charming city into a mess of a cruise port, with all the attendant infrastructure woes that have piled up on taxpayers and the environment in Key West. This is not hyperbole. (For the curious, the record is well documented.)

His business is the Conch Tour Train. In managing to secure a monopoly (subject of a massive lawsuit for which the City is liable) carrying tourists from cruise ships, Mr. Swift built a business empire that deformed Key West.

Florida's most historic, small town --famous for its quirks and beauty--was transformed by Mr. Swift’s domination of business councils and the city commission, into another low-end cruise ship destination, filled with money-laundering T-shirt operators.

But there is more: Mr. Swift has been one of the key anti-environmental voices in Monroe County. In the 1980’s, Swift enforced through proxies in political office his conviction that protecting the environment was not only bad for business—his—but inimical to taxpayers and all freedom-loving Americans. It was the kind of bullshit that took root in Florida in the 1980's and has been harder to root out than Brazilian pepper.

Anything to do with the environment he perceived as a threat to his business, including the national marine sanctuary and the designation of the Keys as a state area of critical state concern. So, to see Mr. Swift's opinion featured in The Miami Herald, deserves note.

For Mr. Swift’s mean-spiritedness, exercised against the public interest in defense of private profit like a cat toying with a mouse, and his apparent senior conversion to concern for the environment, Mr. Swift is hereby nominated to our new category, “Demagogue of the Year”. Congratulations, Mr. Swift: we’re following you all the way.

Here is the text of Mr. Swift's LTE:

I have written two previous letters concerning the 300 million plus gallons of lightly treated sewage pumped into the ocean each day by Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. The Keys' ecosystems are being bombarded by other people's waste -- from this toxic effluent that returns to near-shore waters and makes its way to the Florida Keys to the nutrient-rich fresh water runoff from the Everglades that pours into Florida Bay.
Meanwhile, Keys residents are being mandated to remove their septic tanks, replacing them with central-sewer systems and advanced wastewater treatment to ensure the continued health of our near shore waters and reefs. If we do not reach these standards by a 2010 deadline, our limited building permits will be further reduced, and other sanctions such as moratoriums on construction will most certainly be imposed.
Miami-Dade announced a $2.9 billion plan to build a new Marlins stadium, a port tunnel and other projects. Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward continue to build thousands of residential and commercial units, ensuring that more millions of gallons of toxic wastewater will be pumped into the ocean.
How does it make any sense that our nearest neighbors continue with seeming impunity to dump their waste into the same waters that our national marine sanctuary purports to protect and that we in the Keys are required to protect by meeting strict waste-disposal criteria?
Would it be too much to request that our state Department of Environmental Protection, NOAA -- the federal agency responsible for our sanctuary programs -- as well as the governor, Cabinet and our South Florida Regional Planning Council require Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward to meet the same water-quality thresholds that we must?
Isn't it reasonable that, like us, they would meet a timetable to clean up their mess and that sanctions for their failure to do so reflect the same reaction from the state and the federal governments? Why shouldn't they be required to enact moratoriums on growth and building until they come into compliance? In fact, why shouldn't Miami-Dade be put under the state's ''critical concern'' legislation?
The cost to clean up Miami-Dade's sewage outfall is $1 billion, one-third the cost of the proposed mega deal to build the ball park-tunnel-museum project. What are our state agencies' priorities? Does their concern for the environment stop at the Monroe County line?
EDWARD SWIFT III, Key West

Mayor Manny Diaz, Shangri-La and billionaires helping billionaires... by gimleteye

“The overall message here is about the city and county working together to create a milestone agreement that transforms the future of the region, the city and the county,” was the scripted response of Mayor Manny Diaz to the Miami Herald on the few details surrounding a multi-billion dollar plan to use tax increment financing as a funding source a baseball stadium, a museum, a soccer stadium, money for the Carniverous Center for the Performing Arts, and a new street car—everything but Miami’s kitchen sink and the water to fill it.

If you hear guffaws bleeding through the mayor’s verbiage, that would be Arthur Teele, piping from the far side. But more of Art, later.

This is a story to clip from the Herald and put away to re-read in ten years ("Miami's big plan took 3 years to hatch', Sunday A1, Dec 16, 2007) . I'd file it under 'promises by ambitious politicians incompletely investigated by mainstream media': an incomplete list would include the American Airlines stadium, Bayside Marketplace on Biscayne Blvd., the shrinking of access to the Miami River, and the Homestead Air Force Base.

Interestingly, what these sites have in common is access to Biscayne Bay—owned by the public but from which the public has virtually been shut out, except for sightlines, a few points of entry--overcrowded and underfunded-- and private, armored coastline. But there is too much turnover at the Miami Herald, and too little interest in local political history for editors to dredge up the past.

The bold and dramatic plan by Mayor Diaz to fund billions of dollars of new construction ignores the billions of dollars of infrastructure deficits that Miami and the county have piled up--the trash heap behind the mansion. Last I checked it was $7 billion and growing-- a backlog (and phenomenon like the closure of Biscayne Bay to the public) that is a strong brake on Miami's ambitions.

The imminent source of incremental tax base increase for the CRA would be new construction planned for Watson Island—reported to be a luxury hotel by Asia Pacific, called Shangri-La, and a megayacht basin by a Turkish billionaire.

Unless I'm wrong, the prospective tax base would be used to fund projects of interest to other billionaires: the PAC, the Marlin's stadium, the new art museum and a few centimillionaires at the port.

Only CRA’s are not meant to benefit megaprojects and the wealthy. They are supposed to help the disadvantaged.

When the African American political leader Teele,—former county commissioner and then-city commissioner, walked into the lobby of the Miami Herald and blew his brains out (July 25, 2005), he had the unreported contents of a backpack and one card in his political back pocket: the Omni and Overtown CRA’s (Community Redevelopment Agencies) which he guarded like Jabba the Hud.

What is tax increment financing? The short answer is that additional revenues from a baseline of assessed values within the CRA district may be dedicated to specific projects within the area, controlled by the CRA board. Teele's district encompassed the area of Overtown adjacent to the downtown center.

The big plan that “took 3 years to hatch” (Miami Herald, December 16, 2007) could not happen so long as Teele, the most flawed and brilliant political mind of his Miami generation, held control of the CRA. It was, according to the Herald, Teele who first proposed expanding the borders of the CRA.

In the end Teele lost grip on reality and power, but he was not wrong about its essential points: that the political elite in Miami—whom he had battled his entire life—were after him. He felt they were using every tool at their disposal to bring him down—including law enforcement to harass him and his family.

To be sure, many people were frustrated that Teele was CRA land banking and waiting as billions of dollars of development poured into the central downtown and Brickell area.

The Herald writes, “At the time, the CRA was dogged by allegations of corruption and unchecked spending. Teele’s vision attracted little support. ‘I just don’t see compelling reason for it,’ said (Miami mayor Manny Diaz) in 2002.

That scarcely does justice to explaining how the last political gem in Teele’s political purse, the CRA, is now the center jewel in Manny Diaz’ crown.

Joe Arriola, then city manager, set on Teele with the intent of a pitbull. Miami’s economic elite were hungry for what then seemed to be the inevitable wave of billions in construction and development that would wash over Teele’s political turf and the CRA he zealously controlled. He was not their friend.

The Miami Herald reports that the idea to expand the CRA to include Watson Island was Teele's. One of the more galling features of the Herald story is Arriola's attribution of "genius" to county manager George Burgess' idea to expand the CRA, from serving the purpose of protecting the debt obligations of Parrot Jungle to other necessities like the bottomless hole of costs associated with the Carniverous Performing Arts Center.

It reminds me of then county commissioner Larry Hawkins deciding to give the whole Homestead Air Force Base in a long-term lease to insiders organizing a private commercial airport because it was so easy to get the commission to vote for giving just a small portion of the base to them, first. By such pathways, "genius" turns into a public fiasco for taxpayers.

As Teele was contemplating suicide, I imagine that he must have felt that everyone in a position of politics to get rich from the building boom had succeeded but him. It is sad and ironic that the fierce condo mania and speculation of 2005, that seemed to lift all ships but his, was falling even as he did.

Only three months after he killed himself, the Turkish billionaire went public with his plan for Watson Island. It does make you wonder.

The losers in Mayor Diaz’ deal would be those who are supposed to benefit from the CRA in the first place, and, the reason for which the CRA’s were created: the poor and disadvantaged who aren’t likely to spend their free time, money and energy at places like the Parrot Jungle or the Performing Arts Center or a new Marlin’s stadium.

But the aggrieved also include taxpayers outside the proposed boundaries of the CRA, who would otherwise benefit from the incremental growth of tax base within the city, and, specifically with respect to revenue generated by the proposed development at Watson Island.

The ministers of local and state government are not anxious—and the media is not eager to explore and inform the public—exactly how government budgets are likely to be impacted by the housing market crash in 2008 and 2009.

So what is it all about, the three years of silence as the plotting and hatching and planning was going on?

Perhaps Mayor Diaz grew tired and frustrated with the plodding pace of reforming the zoning code of Miami: “I’m not going through that again!”

Although objections to Miami 21 were periodically charged to the Not in My Backyard (NIMBY’s), closer to reality is how property rights advocates—on behalf of land speculators and powerful developers, screeched against anything that would cost them their “rights” to future density.

You can’t lay off the current round of secrecy, either, to the property rights community. The massive investment projects embraced by Diaz and, one expects, the county commission next week are all in the favor of big developers, engineering companies, and assorted hangers-on.

In a time of crashing housing markets, the Diaz plan is a full-employment act for the lobbying class.

That a multi-billion dollar construction and development plan would be brought to light, from under so much darkness, at the incipient phase of an economic downturn is the kind of bright spot in the news that greeted newspaper audiences yearning for information about Shangri-La: a fictional land with a passing connection to reality.

City of Miami Commissioners passed the whole shebang! By Geniusofdespair

The City of Miami Commission Vote came in swifty at 4 to 1 on the items (Regalado was the "1"), such as the city contribution to the port tunnel and the Marlins. All projects were outlined in today’s Herald:

"Miami city and county leaders have forged a multibillion-dollar public-works bonanza that could alter the face of the downtown core -- affecting everything from a baseball stadium to a port tunnel to museums.

The plan, coming together with rare speed in the world of governmental red tape, envisions a holiday bounty of projects aimed at garnering support from constituencies ranging from sports fans to arts patrons.

Announced late Wednesday by Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, the deal would cover everything from a $914 million tunnel leading to the Port of Miami to finally transforming fallow Bicentennial Park into a waterfront jewel with new art and science museums."

(snip) See the Miami Herald for all the projects: Miami Mayor Diaz revealed a plan to build a stadium and tunnel -- and help museums and the arts center.

City of Miami Housing Scandal by Geniusofdespair

On June 3rd both of us bloggers weighed in on the City of Miami affordable housing scandal. I used a big red flag as my illustration and said:

"City housing director Barbara Gomez -- who until recently was married to Rene Rodriguez, the longtime director of the county's scandal-ridden Housing Agency...." (well if that isn't a red flag!).

It seems it was a red flag, today in the Miami Herald you can read more bizarre twists on Ms. Gomez/Rodriquez/Santana. No wonder I couldn’t look her up! This woman is a red flag as big as my house. Mayor Manny: You should have read my blog before going on TV, radio etc. defending your housing agency. This report looks bad for the city, you should have dumped her a week ago, or put her on leave, when the original story broke.

Doesn't your legal department talk to you Mayor Manny? They knew about this skeleton in her closet. And Babs a word to you: You should have told Manny before he stuck his neck out. HOUSE OF LIES: Miami housing director steers funds toward ex

Big deal: Mayor Manny Diaz fined $250 by Ethics and Public Trust Commission

Wow a whopping fine of $250, from the ever useless Ethics Commission, for a land deal Mayor Manny did with the City Manager and fellow City elected official, Johnny Winton. That is a scary fine, what a message that sends to other politicians! And, Diaz agrees he did nothing wrong to boot! He sure learned his lesson.

Why bother?