An Open Letter on Miami 21. By Ernie Martin

I wrote this to my friends concerned about Miami 21:

Thanks for your focus on our neighborhood and on the many shortcomings of Miami 21. I had a long conversation with Arva Parks yesterday, and we both have numerous concerns about Miami 21. It was an ambitious undertaking and the City took many erratic turns, and, although the City (utilizing our tax dollars) spent a huge amount of resources on what many of us think, or at least thought at the time of the launch many years ago, was a quite noble goal. Everyone, of every political stripe, from greedy developers, to historic preservationists, to neighborhood groups trying to preserve a quality of life, agreed an overhaul was necessary. Cynicism is justified for those that believe no effective overhaul of a city’s zoning can possibly succeed without a moratorium first. The City launched the effort, a noble adventure, but then gave it no urgency by allowing business-as-usual during the deliberations, while the City ran amok in inappropriate overdevelopment. No wonder that no one got serious until the City, under the current inept system, drove itself into financial collapse, making itself a caricature of urban financial idiocy unmatched in the country, except perhaps Las Vegas.

Arva and I agreed that perhaps the best analogy to our current dilemma is the current debate over health care reform. Everyone agrees that the current system is dysfunctional and harmful to all of the stakeholders, except the profiteers. It sucks. Everyone agrees that change is needed. But almost every stakeholder has a little gripe about something or other, and a clamor emerges to do nothing, leaving the current ineptitude in place. Who knows when another opportunity will arise for a better system? In health care’s last attempt at reform, it took 30 years for another stab at the problem.

In the case of Miami 21, almost everyone agrees that it has good elements of neighborhood livability, energy sustainability, low-income mixed use housing opportunities, walk ability and pedestrian/bicycle friendly streetscape, and a myriad of other improvements. Reporter Andres Viglucci reported today on the principles of Miami 21 and their potential for great benefit, similar to what is exhibited on Biscayne Boulevard in Edgewater.

Sitting through dozens of hours in public hearings, Arva and I came to the conclusion that many people (the majority that spoke) wanted to keep the current system because it allows them to make more money; that an articulate minority of actual residents represented by many groups and most effectively by Miami Neighborhoods United, made eloquent arguments that the plan does not go far enough in protecting stable single family neighborhoods such as our own. The Commission will have a tough time choosing between these competing interests: the neighborhood groups are strong because they tend to vote for our elected officials that will protect our neighborhoods, but the developers are also strong because they give the vast bulk of campaign funds to elected officials which assure their development agenda.

The majority of the pressure comes from developers, but neighborhood individuals and groups, although a minority of political influence, will lose a great opportunity to make meaningful change if they don’t support Miami 21. It will take years, probably decades, for it to come back. If it passes, it contains many provisions to fight individual shortcomings in individual neighborhoods for specific projects. If it fails, we will go back to the status quo that everyone hates—but developers are excellent at manipulating. If we fight for individual changes under the current system, we will continue to lose; if we fight for individual changes under Miami 21, we will, at least, be fighting from a platform that supports our policies of neighborhood preservation. All passionate urbanites and neighborhood preservationists abhor compromise—we know what is right, and feel inferior if we don’t go to the wall—but sometimes are goals are easier to achieve from a supportive policy base, although not perfect, than to revert to a failed status quo.

I urge my neighbors to support Miami 21, and then use its improved platform to choose our battles strategically.

Chaotic City of Miami Commission Meeting

During a meeting discussing the EAR (Update of the City's Comprehensive Plan) the City Clerk couldn't figure out what was going on.

County Budget Cuts

The Urban Environment League is against the massive budget cuts to the Parks department. In an article today in the Miami Herald it was reported that cultural groups are gearing up to protect their interests from budget cuts Mayor Alvarez has proposed. Hundreds of people showed up at a Science Museum meeting to discuss the proposed budget and lend support to cultural entities and programs. The Herald says cuts would:

• Squeeze $14.8 million of funding down to a mere $4.4 million.

• What were 500 grant recipients would be whittled down to about 100.

Is Amendment 4 the Right Answer?

There is an article in the Miami Herald today about Amendment 4. The author says:

In the complex world of comprehensive land-use plans, the public cannot vote.

However, this uneven balance of power could change in the 2010 elections. A proposed amendment to the Florida Constitution would give the public the final say on changes to a comprehensive land-use plan that have been approved by commissioners.

Given that changes to a development plan determine the fate of a community for future generations, it is vital that those changes reflect voters' interests, maintains Florida Hometown Democracy, which is promoting Amendment 4.

Contrary to the arguments of the amendment's foes, the objective would not be to ask voters to approve all changes, no matter how minor, like putting an addition onto a house. Instead, it would be limited to significant changes in development policies.

What is your opinion readers? Do you want to leave the last word with voters or politicians?

North Miami Block Parties - "Send a Thief to Jail!"

Jackson Health Systems Execs Meet with Miami Herald Editorial Board

This is a window of opportunity for our readers to see what happens during a newspaper Editorial Board interview.

Broward Sierra Club Asks that you Comment.

Florida, Everglades National Park, the first 'biological park' in our nation's history, is being threatened anew. And this time it's not lack of water, agricultural runoff, sewage, excessive motorized recreation or Burmese pythons on the loose.

Anxious to double the size of its Turkey Point nuclear plant on the shores of Biscayne Bay with two new nuclear reactors, Florida Power and Light (FPL) is attempting to make use of an old utility corridor it still owns inside the borders of the recently acquired East Everglades Expansion Area of Everglades National Park. The plan being put on the table is for FPL to swap out this corridor for one on the park's eastern edge. Three separate lines would cross approximately 7 miles of what is currently national park property on more than 300 towers. Two of the three lines would carry 500,000 volts along towers 150 feet tall, while the third would carry 230,000 volts along 90 foot towers.

Consequences for the park would be enormous. First of all, the towers would dominate the eastern horizon of the entire East Everglades Expansion Area - the heart of the Shark River Slough and the main source of water for Everglades National Park. They would be visible as far away as the popular Shark Valley Visitor Center and tram/bicycle path. But aside from creating a permanent industrialized viewscape for our beloved park, there are other consequences. Scientists are concerned about damage to vegetation and fragile wetland soils; hydrological changes due to the massive concrete pads that would have to be put in place in the floodplain to support the towers; the likely spread of invasive plant species due to both construction and maintenance activities; and effects (including collisions and electrocutions) on wading birds (already reduced by over 90 percent in south Florida since the 1930s) and migratory birds.

Submit your comments directly to the National Park Service at the following website.

Federal help on the way to homeowners facing foreclosure.

The Miami Herald reported today that effective August 15th:

Financially troubled homeowners who have an FHA-insured loan can apply for a modification under a program parallel to "Making Home Affordable" to help lower their payments and avoid foreclosure.

With reports that County and City taxes are expected to rise, this will be a welcome relief to some South Florida homeowners.

Florida Cabinet denies Lowe's move of Urban Development Boundary

According to the Miami Herald, the State Cabinet voted 3 to 1, siding with an administrative law judge, to reject the County Commission's move of the Urban Development Boundary for a Lowe's store.  The County Attorney signaled that it was over for the County. Lowe's might appeal. 

The Urban Environment League was a founding member and driving force in the  Hold the Line movement which was a broad coalition of people, government entities and groups in favor of holding the line on development in areas not served by infrastructure. The UEL agrees with the ruling, we don't think it is the time to move the UDB line.

The Miami Herald says:

Environmentalists and urban planners hailed the decision, saying it sets a precedent for dealing with counties that attempt to bend state growth management laws and allow sprawl. They hope the ruling will halt attempts by politically powerful developers who are seeking to move development boundaries in other counties, including the creation of a new suburb on the Everglades' doorstep in Miami-Dade called Parkland.

EPA recommends denying Lake Belt mining

Last week it was reported that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends denying nine mining applications affecting 6,800 additional acres of wetlands in Miami’s Lake Belt region. In a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in early July, EPA expresses concerns about the environmental impacts associated with the proposed limestone mining. This includes the potential to “significantly degrade aquatic resources,” EPA said in the letter. The region forms the buffer between the Everglades Ecosystem and the urban development of Miami. According to the EPA letter, the nine applications would expand mining activities of APAC-Southeast Inc., Florida Rock Industries Inc., Kendall Properties and Investments, Rinker Materials of Florida Inc., Sawgrass Rock Quarry Inc., Tarmac America LLC, White Rock Quarries and Opa-Locka West Airport. The latest decision in the ongoing legal battle came in January, when a judge ruled against the Corps of Engineers and the mining companies, setting aside 10 of the existing mining permits covering hundreds of acres. The industry appealed the judge’s partial mining ban, with oral arguments scheduled in October. Lake Belt mining permits were originally issued for 5,400 acres in 2002.

City Commissioner Sanchez requests date change for Miami 21

According to the Coconut Grove Grapevine a local Blog:

The public has been quite upset today after finding out that Mayor Manny Diaz called for a Miami 21 meeting early next month. Commission chairman Joe Sanchez issued a statement today urging the mayor to cancel the August 6 Miami 21 meeting party because of the outcry but also because there is a Commissioners workshop on the budget for next year, scheduled the same day.

"It is our mandate from the people to focus 100 percent on the budget crisis," said Comm. Sanchez in a letter to the mayor.

There were two budget workshops scheduled weeks ago by Sanchez's office so, unlike other years, when they go into budget meetings in September the Commissioners will be educated and knowledgeable about the budget issues and will have had a chance to ask hard questions of the administration, and will be able to knowledgably address the financial crisis that the City is in and deal with the out-of-control salaries and pensions. He considers that the highest priority.

In all reality, it was a slimy decision on the mayor's part to have a Miami 21 meeting in the dead of summer when many interested parties are out of town. On the other had, the Commissioners' budget workshops do not involve the public, the public budget meetings are in September when most people are back in town.

"Miami 21" Zoning Ordinance Will Go Before The City of Miami Commission August 6th, 2PM

Just when most of us are on vacation (mentally or physically) there will be a very important City of Miami vote on Miami 21 - the ambitious rezoning of the City of Miami. What is your opinion?

Ours is: Important public hearings should not be held in August.

Read the notices on 16A-17A in the Miami Herald or look at the notices on-line, there is a PDF. Our criticism is that the notices should be in color on-line, as a land-use map not is color, with a color key rendered in B&W, is not useful.

Boothless Tolling on Rickenbacker Causeway? My View by Dario Gonzalez

It would be unwise to pursue boothless tolling on the Rickenbacker Causeway unless we can first slow traffic as it enters the Causeway. Yes, an oxymoron, wait then hurry up.

Electronic toll collection technology is all the rage but only appropriate for highways. The Causeway functions like the majority of our roads where vehicle drivers interact with others and negotiate movement in conflicting directions. Signals, stop signs and lower speed limits are some of the ways those interactions are managed. Anyone watching traffic from outside of a moving vehicle knows that traffic already moves too fast on the Causeway.

The number of accidents, car-car as well as bicycle-car, attest to the dangerous speed of traffic and the occurrence of this behavior is evident by the frequent scene where cops are issuing motorists citations. The Causeway is heavily trafficked by Key Biscayne residents, tourists and used recreationally by area residents; it is not solely a conduit delivering vehicles from Miami to the end of the Key. Unfamiliar drivers, first time or, occasional visitors may drive more slowly and erratically as they figure their way towards their destination and take in the skyline. Besides the fact that the Causeway has many, many lanes, it bears little similarity to a highway.

Do we need a Rickenbacker Highway for higher density and intensity development? Miami needs to embrace the maturity of dense building but highways don’t have to be a part of that future. Without planned areas of preservation, areas targeted for dense development are counter productive. People living in dense areas would search further away from the urban core for recreational activity, further into the ever-expanding fringes of our County. That type of exploration encourages sprawl and creates even more traffic. Removing an oasis from the urban core does not bring us closer to the sort of maturity that typifies a metropolitan city.

Frank Rollason says: The financial crisis gives Miami a chance to get back to basics.

Opportunity in Adversity appeared in the "Biscayne Times," a monthly publication about the Biscayne Corrridor, published by Jim Mullin.

It’s budget time for local governments, and the pressure is on like never before. The county’s newly elected property appraiser has already sounded the alarm, delivering the “bad news” to municipal leaders that the assessed value of real estate has dropped significantly. That will have a negative impact on governmental coffers. The leaders have only two choices -- they can raise their millage rate or cut their budgets.

The millage is the rate at which we are taxed on our real property, and it is set by our local elected officials. Right now in the City of Miami, we have a millage rate of 8.25, which means that we pay $8.25 for every $1000 of assessed value. So if the value of your home is currently set at $400,000, you multiply the millage rate (8.25) times 400 (the number of thousands at which your home was valued), resulting in real-estate tax imposed by the city alone in the amount of $3300. Your total property taxes, including those levied by all the taxing authorities (the county, the school district, and the state) would be $8862.

Now, let’s say your assessed value has dropped 20 percent to $320,000 and the millage rate remains the same. Your new City of Miami taxes would be $2640 -- a reduction of $660. However, here comes the rub. If the current millage rate is maintained, the available property taxes to the city government will drop by the same 20 percent. You can see the dilemma facing our elected officials. They must either raise the millage to make up the difference, cut the budget by the amount of lost tax revenue, or enact some combination of the two. No elected official wants to sit in the “raise taxes” hot seat.

Before commissioners finalize the budget, they must first set the maximum millage rate for the coming year. They can lower it at the final hour, but once set, they cannot raise it. So to hedge their bets, they will almost surely raise the millage rate to a level that will produce enough revenue to run the city -- based on projected new property assessments. Therefore it is our elected city commissioners and no one else who ultimately determine what our taxes will be.

The commissioners and the mayor set the tone for what kind of budget the city administration will propose. For instance, if the commission were to pass a resolution directing the city manager to present a budget requiring no millage increase, the administration would have clear marching orders to develop a budget significantly reduced from last year.

Such a directive would, in turn, elicit a response from the administration that services will most certainly have to be cut, usually through staff layoffs. This is known as the “sky is falling” scenario. All the doom-and-gloom predictions are delivered to the elected officials with a basic message: “Sure, we can cut the budget, but you commissioners will be responsible for cutting those services your constituents now enjoy, from police and fire protection to trash pickup, parks programs, road maintenance, and much more.”

You can imagine the commissioners squirming, then posturing, as they prepare us for the inevitable.

We taxpayers recognize the realities facing us and that something has to give. First, our basic services (police, fire, solid waste) are not going to be cut -- that would be political suicide. We will probably end up with a hybrid of the two options, some cuts and some millage increase, with the hope that property values will come rise over the next few years and the millage can be lowered.

The main issue to be addressed is how we got into this position. Governments have a tendency to grow in size and expenditures, consuming greater and greater amounts of money until the squeal factor kicks in -- that’s the point at which taxpayers start raising hell. When times are good and residents are sharing in a booming economy, it’s easier to spend more without sparking complaints.

It’s been relatively painless for our elected officials over the past few years because the cash flow has increased as a result of property values rising at an unprecedented rate. The assessed values have increased so much, in fact, that Miami commissioners have been able to lower the millage side of the tax equation while revenues actually increased. Though they boast that they’ve lowered our taxes, they really have not. They’ve just lowered the rate at which taxes are calculated. Today, however, the “cheese is binding,” as they say, and something must change. I suggest the following actions be taken by our elected officials:

• Keep the millage exactly where it is right now. Because that will mean a drop in revenue, the stage will be set for meaningful budget cuts.

• Direct the city manager to develop a “zero-based budget” (ZBB) instead of the “line-item budget” currently employed. A ZBB process requires city departments to begin with zero dollars and build up their proposed budgets from there, starting with required or mandated expenses (union contracts, service contracts, fees, and so on), and working their way toward the end product. This method quickly and clearly identifies discretionary expenditures that can be eliminated -- just as you and I do every day, depending upon our available cash.

The line-item-budget process allows departments to begin planning where they left off the previous year and make adjustments, usually by implementing five-percent or ten-percent reductions. The “damaging results” of those cuts (the doom-and-gloom scenario) are then presented to the commission by the city manager. Keep in mind that roughly 80 percent of Miami’s budget is consumed by salaries and fringe benefits. Significant cuts are simply not possible without impacting employees. By utilizing the ZBB process, the impact on the employees will be greatly reduced as unnecessary programs and expenditures are ferreted out.

• Eliminate all departments and offices not specifically called for in the city charter. It’s time to get back to basics, and there is no better way to trim the fat than to eliminate those functions not dictated by the voters of the city. If a function is truly necessary for the health, safety, and welfare of the residents, just place it before the voters and have it approved and made a mandate of the charter -- plain and simple.

It’s also time for our elected officials to bring the mission of the municipal government into focus. The pending budget crisis should be viewed as an overdue opportunity to get the city back on track providing the basic services for which it was formed, building up reserves for lean times, and making this community an affordable place in which to live, work, raise a family, and retire without the constant fear of being pushed out because of taxes that are out of control.

The MIMO on BIBO

Mimo on Bibo is the Miami Modern District on Biscayne Blvd.

Their Website says:

Our volunteers are from all walks of life with sights set to continue on the path to bring the MiMo Biscayne Boulevard Historic District to the forefront and show everyone it is a vibrant and welcoming “destination”.

Our common goal is our motto: “Progress through Preservation”.

UEL Former President, Nancy Liebman, is active in the group.

The restaurants in the districts are always going the extra mile. For example ANISE WATERFRONT TAVERNA has live music and dance shows. Every Wednesday, starting tonight they are having sound from Greece, Spain and the Mediterranean.

Florida Department of Revenue what is the Reasoning?

Miami Herald Columnist, Jackie Bueno Sousa, reported in the Herald yesterday that property records are not being listed accurately on the My Home, property appraiser website. People buying distressed properties (foreclosures) are listed as the owner, but the prior selling price and prior sale date is listed under their name. This is printing false records. In Broward they put the new information in except they put a "D" next to it signifying it is Distressed and will not be counted per orders from the Florida Department of Revenue.

How does this action by the Dept. of Revenue Statewide, change all of Florida reporting numbers?