So Long Tuesday
Political Discussion Group Moderator Moves On After a Decade

Breakfast Club Moderator: ‘People who come to the club vote’

Mike Burke in front of David’s Café II this past Tuesday. Photo by Ryan Brown

By Ryan Brown

Mike Burke sits in the back of a Cuban café on Meridian Avenue, just off Lincoln Road. Small dinner tables form a press conference style U, a shape that allows everyone who attends the Tuesday Morning Breakfast Club to converse with each other, and the regular guest speakers, with little obstruction.

“I think we helped change the nature of the conversation from unbridled development to: ‘what do we need to do to maintain an actual life on Miami Beach?’” Burke says.

The TMBC, which is open to the public, meets every Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. in the back of David’s Café II to discuss Miami Beach politics. The club has evolved since Burke founded it roughly 10 years ago, from a chat group to a mandatory stop for anyone running for public office. State representatives, senators, mayors, and commissioners have stopped by the TMBC to take questions and suggestions from the public.

“People who come to the club vote,” Burke says.

This past Tuesday, there was no guest appearance at the TMBC. Instead, a sort of changing of the guard was discussed, as it was Burke’s last meeting as club moderator.

The group was Burke’s response to the frustration and fear many Miami Beach residents felt in the late 1990s, when, as Burke explains, waterfront overdevelopment threatened not only their access to the ocean, but their quality of life.

“I don’t think Save Miami Beach would have happened without the TMBC,” says Burke.

Save Miami Beach was a ballot initiative and grassroots movement created by Miami Beach activists, many of whom are TMBC regulars, to prevent overdevelopment on the waterfront. David Dermer, current mayor of Miami Beach, led the movement, in 1996 which gathered more than 6000 voter signatures for a referendum on a charter amendment that would require voter-approval for any density increases along Miami Beach’s waterfront. The amendment passed, inspiring City Hall to enact a wave of down-zoning measures.

 “I have always been interested in politics,” says Burke, a retired public administrator for the state of New York, who also acted as upstate campaign manager for Mario Cuomo’s successful campaign for governor in the early 1980s.

Burke explains that the TMBC is different from the average political organization or grassroots group in that it really has no fixed agenda, no single cause. Instead, TMBC is an open forum, where ideas from across the political spectrum are exchanged.

Frank Del Vecchio, a retired lawyer, longtime activist, and TMBC regular since the beginning, calls Burke “The Chris Matthews of Miami Beach.”

“He’s out of that old school, where you tell it like it is,” says Del Vecchio. “When someone’s fudging the issues, call ’em on it … It’s gonna be hard to find another guy or lady like him, but they’re out there.”

 “I want people to focus on where we’re going in the future. I’m hoping to see some new ideas and see what happens,” Burke says, adding “actually I want to have a line in the article, put, ‘I wanted to leave while I still had my mojo.’”

So where will Burke put his political mojo now?

“I am putting together a blog and a Web site,” he says, “to deal with angles in the news that our conventional media will not touch.”

Burke feels mainstream journalism lacks clarity, something he wishes to change.

“For example, on the front page of today’s Herald: sports. Buried in the back pages: six people killed within 36 hours [in Miami]. Is there anywhere else in the world reporting six homicides within 36 hours besides Iraq?”

Burke also likes “connecting the dots.”

“Here’s another example of connecting the dots,” Burke says “Two big things happened recently: first, Castro’s birthday, which he doesn’t show up to. This is the first time in 50 years he doesn’t show up… so, I conclude he’s probably dead. Now, at the same time the Bush administration admits a state secret: that we are naked in terms of Coast Guard protection. So, it seems like an opportune time to for people to flee the country…What do you get? An influx of people to register as Republican voters.”

Burke says his Web site will be up soon and until it is, he will regularly attend TMBC meetings and begin the search for a new moderator.

“Maybe the SunPost can do it,” Burke laughs.

Comments? E-mail ryan@miamisunpost.com.