..

Column Readers Respond XLI

A.C. Weinstein
Columnist 

Did you think your “City Manager” column would stir up such a firestorm at city hall? 

It did prove to be rather successful, that’s for sure. Because this column had been extraordinarily supportive of Jorge Gonzalez during his first two years in Miami Beach, it elevated the success of the criticism to an even higher level. 

What did surprise me, though, is that how few groups and organizations that depend on the manager for funding did not try to gain favor by coming out in his defense. It would seem by now that the GMCVB, as an example, would have passed a resolution supporting the manager. I suppose the VCA covered that.

In a more serious note, that column was just as much the direct result of Gonzalez allowing Assistant City Manager Bob Middaugh to continue on with his outrageous conduct concerning the BayLink track laying construction project. It appeared to me and to many others that the manager was well aware of Middaugh’s behavior and did nothing to curb or stop it.

If Middaugh had acted on his own without the manager’s directive, then Gonzalez should fire him immediately. Short of that, the “City Manager” column stands even taller today than it did a month ago.  

According to a number of residents, Miami Beach is getting noisier and dirtier. Is it? 

Most of the complaints on noise and other quality of life issues in Miami Beach are being generated from residents living in South Beach. This is not to say that the middle and north end of the city are immune from similar concerns, however, this latest wave of complaints rolling into city hall is coming from residents living south of Lincoln Road, where the spillover from the clubs and bars do spawn the greatest impact.

Are South Beach’s overlapping residential and commercial areas from Lincoln Road to South Pointe any noisier or dirtier today than last year or the year before? That’s what a number of residents and businesses are telling city officials.

There’s little to dispute although there is another perspective to consider. Right now the Miami Beach Commission is at a place where most other local governments would love to be. Many of the quality of life issues being addressed are the direct result of Miami Beach’s overwhelming success in real estate and other business and cultural opportunities.

Miami Beach is a different city than it was just five years ago, and now the government is re-evaluating the need it had back then to bring into South Beach the over-the-causeway day-tripper to fill the clubs and bars. The commission is also reviewing its criteria to better define what special events are more appropriate and in the best interest of Miami Beach. It’s not just the biggest crowds anymore.

While the commission may be trying to guide the city through this socioeconomic restructuring, it’s an undertaking that also shifts another set of priorities into the police department. As another component of the city’s success in recent years, the police department is now pointing a larger percentage of its resources toward mopping up the remnants of a decade that’s no longer acceptable in the new Miami Beach.

Residents have been complaining about noise and street urchins for years. There was a time, and that time appears to have passed, when mass tourism and all of its negative impacts on the community had been considered the backbone of the economy. The influx of new hotels, residential properties and exciting new business opportunities are now calling for quality rather than quantity.

No longer does Miami Beach need or want the businesses that have to scream out loud music into the street to attract the crowds it once needed in order to survive. When those businesses eventually calm down, many of those assaults on the values that determine our quality of life and the city we want to live, work and play in, will quickly fade away.  

How are those development issues in Bay Harbor Islands finally going to be resolved?  

It’s a very complex issue that could very well be decided by the new political force in Bay Harbor Islands, the Citizens Coalition. The two incumbent candidates the coalition endorsed in the recent election, Mayor Robert Yaffe and Councilman Isaac Salver, were easily re-elected.   

The greatest challenge facing Bay Harbor Islands is in the way it will treat the five developers whose projects were approved by the council. It was the town that enticed these developers into making multi-million dollar investments, and now that the council is threatening to take away those approvals, Bay Harbor Islands is facing the prospect of numerous lawsuits. Adding to the drama, Yaffe and Salver had voted in favor of those projects.         

What’s going on with that push for the BayLink? 

There’s far too much money in that train track laying construction project being proposed for Miami Beach to allow its proponents to even think about relaxing. The Miami Beach Commission’s directive to the city manager to hire a consultant to study the most appropriate method of improving transit citywide will look at buses and/or trackless trolleys as opposed to trains that require the laying of tracks.

In order to connect the MacArthur Causeway with the middle and north end of the city, any number of routes could easily accommodate expanded bus and trackless trolley service to move in and out of the neighborhoods. These routes could continue through Surfside, Bay Harbor Islands and even into Aventura. If a route isn’t working, the buses and/or trackless trolleys could then be shifted at no cost to seek where the need might be for a greater ridership.

To provide the same transit to the middle and north end of Miami Beach, the mode requiring the laying of tracks will likely have only one route that could accomplish that goal. It will be a double track on Collins Avenue from South Pointe to North Beach. For that to happen, every residential and commercial building, including the hotels on Collins Avenue, will have to agree to a multi-year track laying construction project.

The residents, businesses and hoteliers will have to sign off on the digging up and rebuilding of Collins Avenue, which will include a loss of vehicular traffic lanes and the construction of numerous street poles to connect the running of overhead cabling from South Pointe to The Surfside Town line. The only real curve in the track would be along the newly configured stretch of Collins Avenue that runs adjacent to the Fontainebleau Hotel.

Collins Avenue property owners should call the mayor and commissioners at 305-673-7030 to let them know how you feel about this proposal to improve transit citywide.