Settling Out The Taxpayers 

Dear Editor:

In a recent article published in the SunPost it stated that the City of Miami Beach was ready to settle with Mr. R. Donahue Peebles [RE: “Miami Beach, Royal Palm, Close To Agreement, Negotiators Say,” published in November 14 Beach edition.] I am certain that this settlement will be in the best interest of the Royal Palm resort and Mr. Peebles. There is no question that this gentleman from the start has been very cleaver. His first move was that he saw an opportunity to settle the "Black Boycott" of Miami Beach in exchange for a sweat heart deal--a sweat heart deal for him and certainly not for the people and taxpayers of Miami Beach. First question-What “Black Boycott"? Those few blacks that came to vacation in Miami Beach came here without incident and those who moved here moved here without incident. In my opinion the former administration made some very bad moves in dealing with this group and should be held accountable for there actions. However, as usual in Miami this will never happen. The reason is greed and the cover up rule here and the citizens have very little interest in the future of our city unless of course it affects them directly.

Now take this gentleman who says that he has purchase, developed and restored many properties. If he has done as he says then he is certainly not a novice and certainly would have had an investigative team examine the structures that he was interested in buying. This team of experts would have informed him as the suitability of the structures he was interested in, therefore, it would not have been possible for him to have been "deceived" as he claims unless of course he had devised a plan whereby deception was a part of it.

Next, how does he have the right under any law to withhold rent? Has this money that he owes been determined and held in escrow by a court order? I don't think so. Is he threatening another "Black Boycott" of Miami Beach? Well the city could always give in and have another series of "concerns" But please inform the merchants so that they can properly to the necessary preventative actions.

Get real politicians and handle this action in a manner that you were elected to do.  Unless, of course, there is something that we don't know. Mr. Peebles, like any other tenant that withholds rent from a landlord, must be handled like anyone else and must follow the procedure as prescribed by law. Stop allowing this man to place himself above the law and act solely in his own interest least you bring forth the wrath of the citizens of Miami Beach, some of whom still care about how this city in run.

John M. Allan

Beach Planning Board Ain’t No Vacillators 

To the Editor:  

SunPost columnist A.C. Weinstein (“Planning Board Unwrapped”, Dec. 12) criticizes the Planning Board for vacillation, and gives its Bay Link (light rail transit between Miami and South Beach) deliberations as an example.  I don’t believe his is a fair assessment. At the first meeting on the proposal, the Board had many technical questions.  At the second, technical consultants answered those questions, enabling the Board to consider broader land use impact and economic benefit issues.  They then unanimously recommended the development of this transit system.

This is not a rubber stamp board.  If it appears to vacillate, it is because its members represent wide-ranging philosophies of planning.  Their discussions reflect the complexity of the issues entrusted to them. 

Frank Del Vecchio
                  

Roosevelt Was An Anti-Semite… At Least According to Dermer Senior 

To the Editor:  

During the December 11 Miami Beach City Commission meeting, Mayor David Dermer made a veiled reference to the method his late father Jay used to win the Mayor's seat against incumbent Elliot Roosevelt. Later lobbyist Charlie Citron attempted to curry favor with Dermer by attributing his father's win to political acumen and then quipped, "I knew your Dad and you're not your Dad."

Many of today's residents don't know how Jay Dermer actually won. He stole the Jewish vote in the 11th hour of the election by making unsubstantiated claims that Roosevelt was an anti-Semite, leaving Roosevelt no time to rebut the false accusations and thus he lost the Mayoral race.  Although David campaigned on his family legacy of service to Miami Beach and occasionally points to his father's photo behind him in the Commission Chamber, I hope that history will prove that David is a better man than his father was.

J. Barnes

Milt on Population, Public Servant Hiring, L.A., Commendations, The Salaries of Public Officials, and Anything Else He Can Come Up With 

Editor: 

Will somebody please tell me how come our population has been going down, not up, and our city [Miami Beach] budget is practically double from before according to the last census and don’t ask me to be accurate as nobody else is.  I’m not good at that, but at least I try.  Here are the numbers: we’ve lost 10,000 souls somewhere along the line.  During this period we have added double our civic servants.  There used to be five code inspectors at one time, now there are 20.  Why?  Will somebody please clue me in? Now don’t get me wrong.  I love our city employees.  I practically know all of them and they do a great job but let’s face it, if you can’t afford to keep your own mother in your business why keep her on?  Like she used to say, may she rest in peace, “You gotta make a living.” 

Now look, we can’t go hiring everybody in the county just because we love them and want to be nice guys, right?  We’re not the feds and I don’t mean FedEx!  Does any of this make sense?  Is there any logic to this madness?  Every time I ask the city I get lots of answers, courteous and all, but the answers are all different, which bugs me but they are so nice of course I swallow it hook line and sinker as I don’t wanna seem like a bad guy because I like to be liked too!

This is one of those old chestnuts which just won’t go away, the more you kick it down, the more it rears up its ugly head.  Like more policemen on the streets and making the streets safer so we don’t have to take our life in our hands every time you cross the street by simply letting everybody know that pedestrians have the right of way, like they do in L.A.

Now here’s the other thing that bugs me, that’s where every Miami Beach commission meeting has to go into the night because for whatever reason the whole morning every cockamamie institution or function is fetted over in order to give you a nice fuzzy feeling and to get the commission off by being told how nice it is.  By the time important stuff gets tackled, half of the place is empty, especially by those people that have to make a legitimate living: the forgotten ones, the unwashed ye erstwhile taxpayer citizen.  The only poor souls left are the lobbyists who can have a field-day pulling the wool over our eyes as the rest of us are half-asleep, or nodding out dying for the whole thing to end and the torture to stop.  By this time who can figure out what’s going on, what’s been passed or what’s been sneaked through under our half-closed eyes?

Now what’s the sense of this? I know that the members don’t make a living here as their salaries are peanuts.  I don’t know how they make a living?  Does anybody? It’s all our fault.  Do we expect them all to be independently wealthy? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I would like to see them get a salary that industry would pay so that we get this issue out of the way and we don’t have to sweat their getting the people’s work done.  It may be okay to be cheapskate, like I am, but hey, in the long run it ends up costing us.  You want answers, you gotta show up at City Hall.  I know it’s torture but it’s your money.  Studies have been done that governments do not make things clear to their citizenry.  But remember the onus is upon them as your servants to make things clear to you.

Shalom,

Milt Montalvo