Apparently these aren’t the trees that will be relocated. Photo courtesy John Corey

School’s Out for Trees

John Corey has two jobs: He is a real estate operator and he is the acting president of the Bayshore Homeowners Association. And although Corey only lives in his Prairie Avenue Miami Beach home nine months of the year, he told Murmurs during a recent telephone conversation from his Boston Investment & Development office that addressing issues of his Beach neighborhood has become a full-time task. Among those issues, according to the Web site www.bayshorehomeowners.org, are the Bayshore Par 3 Golf Course, noise pollution, graffiti, water treatment facilities at the corner of Sheridan Avenue and 28th Street and, last but not least, the long-awaited expansion of Miami Beach Senior High. Long awaited at least for parents living in Beach High’s feeder pattern, who have been clamoring for improvements at the overcrowded school since 2000.

But for homeowners between Alton Road, Pine Tree Drive, Dade Boulevard and 40th Street, the high school’s expansion project comes with a host of challenges — especially when it comes to what the homeowner association’s Web site describes as “specimen tree removal.”

It was specimen tree removal that recently riled many Bayshore homeowners. “The neighborhood was truly shocked to have the trees removed like that,” Corey told Murmurs, adding that some of the trees recently cut down were more than 30 years old. “I hail from Boston; the design element would be to incorporate 40-year-old trees…. I don’t know what their problem is.”

Architect Jose Murguido of Zyscovich, Inc. doesn’t think he has a problem. He is trying to bring to fruition a $65 million expansion project that has been four years in the making. “The school is going to be reborn,” Murguido said. When completed, the project will have 240,000 square feet of additional space, including more classrooms, labs, a black-box theater, and a brand-spanking-new gym. Oh, and there will be landscaping too, Murguido said, consisting of native Florida species. Yes, trees were taken down, but they were “invasive,” he said.

Joe Stilwell, chief enforcement officer for Miami-Dade’s Department of Environmental Resource Management, said all the trees that were pulled out could be removed legally (some trees were considered borderline nuisances). Unfortunately, subcontractor Suffolk Construction Company jumped the gun and commenced work removing 16 trees in 2005 without a permit. Following that incident, in August 2005, a consent agreement was worked out whereby $4,000 was paid to DERM for the violations. Around the same time a performance bond of more than $17,000 was paid out (presumably by the client, aka the Miami-Dade School Board) for the relocation or flat-out removal of 56,874 square feet of canopy (trees and shrubs), of which 31,922 square feet was termed “native.” At any rate, the trees Corey and his neighbors saw being removed in June of this year had their travel papers (or death warrants) already signed by DERM. In other words: The deforestation is now legal.

Murguido said there will be new canopy at the renovated Miami Beach Senior High that will complement the neighborhood. The landscaping plan has also been vetted during endless public meetings. Unfortunately, new homeowners (many in search of that Florida green) aren’t aware of that, he said. “This is a project that has been scrutinized.”

Murguido, though, prefers not to let tree removal overshadow the Beach High project, the first phase of which is scheduled to be completed in 2009. “It is really going to be spectacular,” he said. “People are going to line up to put their kids in this facility.”

Shock to the Political System

Last week Murmurs reported about mysterious e-mails sent to the media by “Maureen OHara” that basically blamed the current powers of Surfside for the recent electrical shock received by a young boy swimming in the Community Center pool. Oh, and then there were the e-mails by Mayor Charles Burkett sent back to OHara and media outlets showing his correspondence with Town Manager W.D. Higginbotham and Town Attorney Lynn Dannheisser about the incident and an electrician that worked for him and later the town and … eh … whatever.

Anyway, there were three people shocked that July 16 afternoon in the town pool, according to resident and attorney Rico Sogocio. And he should know. One of the three was his toddler. The second was another adult swimming in the pool. The third was Sogocio, who said his son had just swum to the edge of the pool when he started to scream. Then Sogocio himself started feeling the pain. “It was only because I was being shocked that I realized what was causing my son to scream,” Sogocio wrote in a letter to the SunPost. “Second, while a ‘low voltage emission of electricity’ is stated as what shocked my son, the voltage was certainly powerful enough to momentarily paralyze me as it coursed through the right side of my body and certainly serious enough to cause my 4-year-old son to lose consciousness.” The boy later was kept overnight at Mount Sinai Hospital for observation.

“Shame on anyone who would attempt to spin this incident to suit a particular political agenda or to grind a personal axe or two.”

Sogocio, who is also a member of the Surfside Charrette Committee (which will help plan the future of the aging Surfside Community Center and the rest of the town), said he wanted to come forward for two reasons: to let everyone know what exactly happened when the pool was closed and to express his disgust that the accident would be used for partisan political reasons. “I am not going to profess to know who might be at fault,” Sogocio told Murmurs via phone. “Like I said in my letter, I don’t think this should be a partisan issue.” As Sogocio put it in that letter: “Shame on anyone who would attempt to spin this incident to suit a particular political agenda or to grind a personal axe or two.”

For the last couple of years, Surfside’s political atmosphere has been quite charged between loyalists of former Mayor Paul Novack’s town government and increasingly vocal opponents. Last March, five candidates critical of “the old ways” (including former loyalist incumbent Commissioner Steve Levine) were elected. One major hot issue is what to do with the Surfside Community Center—renovate or demolish. While the debate was ongoing, the pool remained open, a decision “OHara” blamed Burkett for and stated that the “parent is now considering a lawsuit.”

Sogocio insisted he hasn’t decided whether or not to sue the town. “I am certainly looking at what my options are,” he said. However, Sogocio’s primary concern is to find out what happened, why it happened, how to make sure it never happens again, and find “who is ultimately responsible and hold them accountable.”

As Murmurs stated last week, Higginbotham blamed what he described as a “low voltage of electrical power” on a pool light and predicted it would cost between $85,000 and $150,000 to fix. The pool is still closed.

NBV Libre

As you probably know by now, Fidel Castro is in ill health and his brother Raul has been “temporarily” handed the task of being the dictator of Cuba.

But as far as anyone could tell at 2:19 p.m. this past Monday, Fidel was still going strong as Cuba’s boogeyman. And so, as President George W. Bush toured Miami-Dade, artist and Grand View Palace condo owner Victor-Hugo Vaca sent out an e-mail titled “Bush’s Trip to Miami Marred by ‘Communist Pocket’ Near South Beach.” A quick refresher: The Grand View Palace was severely mangled by Hurricane Wilma, and Vaca has since been a vocal opponent of James Edwards, who converted the North Bay Village residential building to condos prior to the storm.

“After the July 26, 2006 appearance of artist/activist Victor-Hugo on the ABC News affiliate WPLG 10 denouncing the failure of local government agencies to monitor the abuse of power by the developer which has [led] to the existing dangerous human safety violations at the Grand View Palace, James Edwards ordered North Bay Village Police to issue Victor-Hugo with a verbal and written NO Trespass Warning into the building’s public Sales and Leasing Office,” stated his e-mail release. Vaca claimed he just inquired about a broken security gate at the parking garage and about the price of the building’s rentals when “James was snapping pictures of me like the paparazzi and telling everyone he felt threatened by my presence.” Feeling he is being unfairly blocked from the sales and leasing office because he is Hispanic, Vaca says he has retained the services of the American Civil Liberties Union. “James has apparently been studying Castro’s Government Policy and found it appropriate in some instances, I suppose,” he stated in his release.

Contacted by Murmurs, a North Bay Village police officer said Vaca has only been issued a trespass order from “personal visits” and can still go to the sales center for “normal business.” As stated in a May 26 NBV police report, Edwards told Vaca in front of officers that he “can go to this office for any business related only to matters that are within the scope of a unit owner.” A July 28 report states Edwards said Vaca entered the office “knowing he had been verbally trespassed.” The report further states that Edwards “continued to say that Vaca is only allowed to enter [the office] on scheduled association meetings.”

Meanwhile, as a storm system named Chris turns in the Caribbean Sea, a judge has ordered a special master to “listen to residents” and come up with a specific plan to repair hurricane damages to the Grand View by August 23.

Comments? E-mail letters@miamisunpost.com.