Another Stunning Development …
In a
stunning reversal of its contentious 4-3 Sept. 5 vote, the
Miami Beach City Commission rescinded its resolution placing
a $95 million bond authorization on the Nov. 6 ballot [News,
“The Bond Is Dead,” published Sept. 20]. The funds would
have been used to buy the nine-acre Miami Heart hospital
property from its owner, Mount Sinai Medical Center; raze
the hospital building; and develop the site as a park.
Interest payments over the 30-year bond repayment period
would have brought the total taxpayer cost to an estimated
$181.6 million.
A
groundswell of public opposition signaled that the
proponents of the bond had generated a severe backlash from
throughout the city.
City
commissioners who had pushed for the bond sidestepped the
political backlash and assuaged the fears of neighbors that
the site would be overdeveloped by agreeing to refer to the
planning board an ordinance that would permit the adaptive
reuse of the existing Miami Heart hospital building as an
assisted living facility.
Frank Del Vecchio
Miami Beach
Lovin’ the Article, but Not the Quote
I
read and enjoyed Angie Hargot’s Sept. 20 article entitled
“Paper Chase.” It did, however, contain a substantive error
as it relates to quotes attributed to me. The article
indicated that I said the memo was regarding a conversation
that Marc had with another commissioner. It is not. I said
it was regarding a conversation Marc [Sarnoff] had “with a
former city official.” I would appreciate a correction on
this.
Alan
Wachs
Miami
The Political Bedfellows of Joe
While I've always been
told not to respond to personal attacks, I read Joseph
Graubart’s recent opposition letter about my thoughts on
Floridians being overtaxed and, more recently, about
his staunch support of former Mayor Paul Novack
gut-renovating his own house without proper permits
(according to Miami-Dade County) while his administration
was busy taking Surfside homes away from residents for minor
code infractions [Letters, “McCarthyism Is Alive and Well in
Surfside,” published Sept. 13]. After reading, I smiled and
felt another exception was in order.
As a faithful disciple of
the Paul Novack/Tim Will regime that preceded our
administration in Surfside, and as a candidate who ran
unsuccessfully with all of them during the last go-round,
Joe’s real story — as opposed to the story he’s trying to
sell — is known to anyone who follows local politics.
However, it is for those who are not following the
day-to-day activities in Surfside that I write this
response.
Before I decided and
eventually was compelled to run for office in 2006, we all
struggled with and watched many of Joe’s running mates and
pals:
• Expropriate
Surfside homes for minor code enforcement issues;
• Deny
residents the right to express themselves at meetings;
• Charge
homeowners huge amounts of money for sewer repairs on town
property;
• Draw
up plans for a community center on a napkin;
• Allow
our police department to deteriorate to near-collapse;
• Complicate
such simple tasks as obtaining a permit for minor work on a
home until it was nearly impossible;
• Eliminate
a program that controlled the cat population on the beach;
• Overtax
Surfside residents by keeping our real estate property taxes
at an artificially high level;
• Allow
our ordinances and codes to become outdated;
• Nearly
drown the town in wasted legal fees;
• Set
the town up for giant lawsuit losses;
• Pay
their favored town lawyers millions over decades to attack
and instill fear in our residents;
• Alienate
most or all of our neighboring municipalities with their
combative attitude;
• Run
very personal and hurtful attacks in the most recent
election (Joe even
admitted, on the record, at the last town commission meeting
that he was the “wheelman” driving a car that went up and
down the street while his fellow candidates hung out of the
car screaming profanities at us while we campaigned);
• Scare
away wanted retailers like Starbucks from our downtown only
to add another bank;
• Not
allow valet parking in the business district;
• And
on and on.
While I know Joe didn’t
seem to like my thoughts on smaller, more responsive
government and lower taxes, and that he’s intent on covering
for Paul Novack, he could have just gotten to the point and
said he’s OK with the high tax rate in our town and in
Florida.
While we’ve not been
perfect, and there’s been an awful lot to digest in just a
short time, I’m proud to be a part of our commission and I’m
proud of the accomplishments we’ve achieved.
As for Joe, I support his
right to come to meetings and let us know how he feels, but
hope that he’ll look at his pals’ and running mates’ track
records above and consider more productive ideas for our
town.
Charles W. Burkett
Mayor, Surfside
Not Wishing for a P-Match, but Fighting for My Right to Do
So Under the Constitution
Six
members (one was absent) of Miami Beach’s Zoning Board of
Adjustment scrambled to chasten me a week ago. Why? For
daring to send a letter to the Miami SunPost
criticizing them for not revoking a variance order they
granted on March 3, 2006 to the Regent South Beach/Table 8
[“Passing Grade,” published Sept.
13 and Letters, “The Snow Queen: More Than Just a ‘Dinner
Party,’ It Was Grounds to Revoke a Special Permit,”
published Aug. 23.]
While I exercised my right to freedom of speech under the
Bill of Rights by writing this letter, and the SunPost
exercised the freedom of the press guaranteed in that same
document by deciding to print it, the zoning board decided
to take “the best defense is a good offense” approach, plus
go the ad hominem route for good measure, and spent
five to 10 minutes chewing me out. They then rescheduled our
hearing, from second on the agenda, to far, far, down the
list. By our reckoning, we should have been heard at 9:30
a.m. It would have been over before 10:30 a.m., yet we
didn’t get out until 12:30-ish. Were we punished and made to
wait for being bad?
I’m
not about to get into a pissing match with this board; I
will simply stand by the opinions I expressed in that first
letter. Their attempts to humiliate and (perhaps) intimidate
me and others in our group are irrelevant to the important
issues at hand. (The tooting of this same board’s collective
civic horn for five to 10 minutes, though, seemed a tad
inappropriate; some might even venture to say it was
sanctimonious.)
What
was relevant from that letter, and what this board
did not choose to respond to, is that our side wasn’t
allowed to speak after the public hearing was cut off,
though the other side was; that this board appeared
dismissive of residential concerns, if not borderline
hostile; and that the city of Miami Beach needs to look at
its power boards more closely and ask from where all this
anti-resident stuff is coming.
The
other so-called power boards are historical preservation,
planning, and design review. I recently attended meetings of
the first two and was appalled. The chairman of the historic
preservation board cut off the public hearing on Tuesday
during the Hotel Bijou discussion, yet he allowed a lobbyist
to go on for several minutes. When I stood up and asked to
speak, I was denied. My response to the chairman was,
“What, you let a lobbyist speak after you cut off the public
hearing, but there’s no equal time for a resident?” (Or
is it just this particularly dangerous little old
grandmother who these boards want to shut up?) An unpleasant
pattern seems to be emerging.
It’s
time for the mayor and city commissioners (and candidates
for these posts) to consider the composition of the city’s
power boards and how they are interpreting their roles
vis-à-vis the public. For starters, do they accurately
represent Miami Beach’s demographics? The hectoring of
residents and attempts to abrogate their constitutionally
ensured right to freedom of speech has got to stop. It’s
disgraceful.
Jo
Manning
Miami Beach
Car 54,
Where Are You? Or Any Police Car for That Matter …
I have the
task of calling the Miami Police Department. Too frequently
its response is
terrible and, on the weekends,
even worse. It seems they have an attitude of first trying
to intimidate and/or
belittle you so as to make you
hang up. The best line is “there’s a unit on the way” — a
usual no-show.
Question:
Is it the police or the operators? Answer: It is the police
department! It is your federal, state, county and city
officials that need to look for another no-show job. We need
a government
that
functions on all levels, not Third World minds, ideas and
government. Make sure you vote for people and vote them out.
George Link
Miami
Hey, Mr. Moneybags: When the Ocean Submerges Florida, Don’t
Come Crying to Me
As an avid
cyclist and frustrated South Florida transplant, my sense of
outrage has once again been stimulated following the Sept.
13 SunPost letter to the editor from Mr. Hershel
Goldberg. Mr. Goldberg suggested that local cyclists take
their cycling “hobby” out of the Miami area and go to La
Provence and Maine like he does. Perhaps we are all not
quite as lucky and affluent as Mr. Goldberg or, better
still, perhaps he’ll fund trips for us all to join him
there!
More
importantly, there are some of us who moved to South Florida
to actually experience our beautiful outdoors 12 months a
year rather than “go to a gym like normal people” as he
suggested we do! As an American living near Montreal,
Canada, for 20 years, I managed to cycle 5,000 kilometers a
year, despite the weather. Yet, here on the beach, I barely
manage to cycle 15k a week without encountering danger,
frustration and angry motorists. We, as responsible
citizens, need to address this issue. Perhaps we could have
a public showing of the Sundance documentary, Crude
Awakening, and then come together as a community to
address the very real future of cycling becoming one of the
answers to our environmental problems rather than a problem
itself, as Mr. Goldberg perceives it to be. I look forward
to a “greener, more cooperative” Miami Beach.
Dawn
Withrow
Surfside
