[for Art Deco Weekend]: Will the 2007 Art Deco Weekend, Jan. 12-14, go as smoothly as its press conference? If so, hopefully paramedics will be at the ready. Miami Design Preservation League Executive Director Bill Farkas, left, presents the Art Deco Weekend 2007 poster with special guest Xing Tong He, one of China’s most well known architects, and Philip Brooker, 2007 poster artist.

Opening Windows (and Doors) to Shanghai Relations

A press conference was held Monday by the Miami Design Preservation League to unveil the “East meets West: Art Deco from Shanghai to Miami” theme for 2007’s Art Deco weekend. The conference featured a lecture on Shanghai’s architectural similarities to Miami Beach by premier Chinese architect Xing Tong He. Speaking via translator at a secluded conference room at the Setai, 2001 Collins Ave., he addressed the two cities’ cultural relations. “With this I hope to open a window to Shanghai for Miami people to understand us better,” he said.

According to a witness, after the conference, television reporters ushered Xing outside, where it was quieter, for interviews. While rushing to assist Xing in an interview with WPLG Channel 10 reporter Alex Alvarez, Xing’s translator, Mr. Lee, walked smack into a glass door. Mr. Lee’s glasses cracked (it all happened too fast for anyone to get his first name) and he was cut just above one of his eyes and the amount of blood that came out was enough to have Setai employees call an ambulance to whisk him off to the hospital.

A source later said a man whose injuries matched those of Mr. Lee was treated and released at Mount Sinai Medical Center earlier in the day.

What The?

Murmurs remembers a time when the most exciting thing to report about Bay Harbor Islands was that Town Hall had to advise its residents about the high content of lead in the drinking water. The lead levels were nowhere near dangerous, from what Murmurs recalls, but the lead content — blamed on the plumbing of some of the old houses — was still high enough that the state required a notice to be sent out.

Since then controversy has found Bay Harbor Islands and debates about development, holiday decorations, school overcrowding at Ruth K. Borad-Bay Harbor Elementary, and creating historic districts grip the town. Still, discourse at Bay Harbor Islands council meetings remains, for the most part, polite, and everyone seemed to like Town Manager Greg Tindle. Which is why Murmurs was baffled when receiving the following e-mail from one of the town’s activists: “Greg Tindle, Bay Harbor Islands, Town Manager, was fired today? Who is running our town?”

“Huh? What gives? This can’t be right!” Murmurs immediately thought.

And it wasn’t — exactly. “The truth?” Tindle asked. “I have resigned. I called [the council members] yesterday. It’s nothing to do with the job or with the town. It is for personal reasons.” Tindle declined to go into further details.

“I liked the guy,” said Councilman Ken Weinstein, who felt Tindle strived to serve Bay Harbor Islands as best he could. Tindle cited family reasons and the long commute (his family was at least two hours away) for his pending resignation, Weinstein said. The councilman also said he did not know of anyone who disliked Tindle.

“It was a very difficult decision,” said Tindle, 48, who now makes $110,000 a year as the town manager. “I think it [Bay Harbor] is a great place to work.”

Next Monday the Town Council will hold a meeting to discuss just how they plan to name a replacement. It has been awhile. Tindle was hired in 2003, replacing Linda Karlsson, the manager for the previous 12 years.

Tindle said he will stick around for at least another couple of months until a replacement is found.

News Flash

Meanwhile, a shocking thing happened at County Hall Tuesday. The collective IQ of the Miami-Dade County Commission suddenly shot up several points when they actually declined to place a referendum on the ballot that, if approved, would cut Mayor Carlos Alvarez’s salary to $12,000 a year. Or was it $120,000 a year? Whatever, it doesn’t matter because the commission had a flash and decided that passing Commissioner Natacha Seijas’ ordinance would look — gasp! — vindictive.

Wow, a politically savvy lot they are. They finally see the frenzy of the local media as Alvarez (who makes $229,083 a year, by the way) prepares to woo voters to approve his charter amendment on Jan. 23 that would give him the power to hire and fire department heads and make the county manager his beholden lackey. Prior to Tuesday’s meeting, the majority of the County Commission reacted to this threat by restricting the ability of citizens to circulate petitions (see this week’s editorial), hiring high-priced lawyers on the taxpayers’ dime and acting all indignant.

But now a light bulb has gone on and commissioners realized that acting like arrogant fascists is a bad way to get a point across. So they had a frank discussion on why they felt the mayor gaining these extra powers was a bad idea (Commissioner Katy Sorenson called it government by patronage) and then rationally spoke of how they could combat it without spending public money.

Commissioner Joe Martinez was all set to form a political action committee with his fellow commissioners to wage ideological battle with Alvarez for the hearts and minds of Miami-Dade Countians. One problem: that pesky Sunshine Law, which forbids public officials to discuss anything that may come before the board, outside of a publicly advertised meeting. County Attorney Murray Greenberg said if two or more commissioners go somewhere to discuss strategy, it will have to be advertised. Yet Martinez wanted to know what would happen if county commissioners stayed away from any government business and just talked campaign strategy.

“My job is to
protect you,
sometimes from
 yourselves.”

“My job is to protect you, sometimes from yourselves,” Greenberg answered. It would be quite likely that conversations might drift toward government business “as sure as I am short, bald and wear bifocals.”

Martinez seemed hurt. They wouldn’t go and talk about, say, slashing the mayor’s salary if the amendment should pass, Martinez said. (The commission, by the way, does have the power to set the mayor’s salary, as Martinez noted earlier.) They would just talk about what churches to speak at and such.

Doesn’t matter, Greenberg said; they would be accused of breaking the Sunshine Law by others in “authority.” A reference to Alvarez? Perhaps. At any rate, commissioners were ready to campaign against the measure in one form or another. Commissioner Javier Souto held up the current charter like a bible. “This is a 50-year-old document,” Souto said. “It has all the checks and balances [we need].”

Never mind that since the county’s charter was first written in 1957, commissioners are now elected through 13-membered districts instead of at-large and that the current “executive mayor” system, and the checks and balances that go with it, is not even 11 years old. Still, Murmurs appreciates the sentiment displayed by Martinez, Souto and others and hopes for an honest and intellectual debate on how county government should be run. Murmurs doesn’t expect that will happen, but hopes nonetheless.

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