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Task Force TV
There are only a few more county Charter Review
Task Force meetings — and they make for some of the
best reality TV around
By Rebecca Wakefield
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Lobbyist and Charter Review Task Force member
Miguel De Grandy is fine with ego clashing —
so long as his doesn’t get crushed. |
Nobody insults Miguel De Grandy and gets away with it. The guy packs
a mean rhetorical punch and he’s not shy about
letting it fly. Mario Artecona found that out last
week, when he made an offhand reference to De Grandy
in his remarks to the
Miami-Dade Charter Review Task Force.
The task force is the body of
County Commission appointees charged with reviewing
the county’s home rule charter and recommending
changes that should be put to public vote.
Two of the charter questions are on the Jan. 29 ballot. They
include whether to move the qualifying date for
commission candidates three weeks earlier (to save
the election department money) and whether or not to
make the property appraiser’s office elected rather
than appointed.
But the task force has made many other recommendations, any of
which may or may not be put on future ballots by the
County Commission. These include setting a higher
barrier to the urban development boundary, restoring
a great deal of power to citizen petition efforts
neutered by vengeful county commissioners, and
paying commissioners more, but kicking them out of
office sooner.
These are big questions and well deserving of a public vote. But in
Artecona’s view, there is another issue that never
got a full airing — whether to change the structure
of the 13 single-member districts from which
commissioners are elected. During a public hearing,
Artecona (who is the executive director of the Miami
Business Forum, but spoke here only of his own
personal opinion) praised the task force for a
generally thoughtful process. Then he made the fatal
comment.
“I feel the task force gave up way too early on the discussion of
the revamp of the [single-member district] system,”
he said. “I personally feel the group was
manipulated by one of your members. Writing an op-ed
piece and speaking about the greatness of
parochialism, [he was] basically casting a shadow on
anyone who wants to have a debate of regionalism
versus district, [that they’re] somehow trying to
take something away from minorities.”
Artecona didn’t mention him by name. But De Grandy, watching a tape
of the meeting later (he’s a member, but wasn’t at
the meeting), was incensed. De Grandy had, after
all, written the op-ed piece in the Miami Herald
a couple of days after the group had agreed that its
members would funnel all its opinions through the
task force’s chairman, Victor Diaz. I mentioned the
squabble over this in a previous column.
So the next day, the task force had another meeting. De Grandy
attended and let loose on Artecona and Diaz for some
30 minutes for impugning his reputation. Impugning
may seem hard to do to a guy who is, arguably, the
most successful lobbyist running the
County Commission. But apparently it is still
possible. “It ticked me off,” De Grandy told me.
“The word manipulation involves some sort of
underhanded behavior. Artecona insulted every member
of this board as well as me. This is the second time
someone took a pot shot at me. And because Victor
Diaz, the chair, disagrees with me philosophically,
he lets it happen.”
Diaz shot back. “While it’s my responsibility to make sure the
debate remains respectful and high-level, I do not
view my role as being the speech police,” he
responded. “When you invite the public to speak, you
have to be careful not to stifle it.”
Of course, this is why the squabble is worth noting. Behind De
Grandy’s stance is what some view as a very
considered game of smoke and mirrors aimed not at
redeeming his tarnished virtue, but at deflecting a
dangerous debate.
I’m in this camp. In the Web cast, which is on the county’s site,
the more interesting comments come from other task
force members after Artecona speaks. Several,
including Diaz, former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre,
attorney Jorge Luis Lopez, former County Attorney
Murray Greenberg and former Miami Beach Mayor David
Dermer, express interest in bringing the
single-member district question back into debate at
the next meeting.
De Grandy is a former state legislator who played an instrumental
role in establishing single-member districts.
His success as a lobbyist courting commissioners who
have benefited from this system depends on the
system remaining in place.
That’s not to say that he’s fundamentally wrong. This is a thorny
issue. In the past, county commissioners were
elected at-large, by every county voter who bothered
to turn up. But for the past decade and a half, each
commissioner has been elected only by a narrow
district. Voters have no say whatsoever in who the
other 12 politicians screwing them over are. The
change was made after federal lawsuits were filed
charging, correctly, that minorities weren’t
adequately represented on the board.
Artecona and many others have argued that electing at least some
commissioners at-large would force them to focus on
a countywide perspective, rather than being
essentially pothole mayors of their little
districts. There are obvious pros and cons to
consider, but it’s a broad discussion that should be
pursued.
De Grandy’s view is that the discussion was had and 11 task force
board members (of 21 who showed up on the day of
voting) agreed with him that the system should
remain the same. He thinks the process of clashing
egos has been generally a good one, producing many
worthy recommendations. But he denies the smoke and
mirrors theory.
“I’m flattered in some respects that people think I have so much
power,” he said, practically grinning through the
phone. “But all I did was talk. How, by reacting to
Artecona, I could be viewed as manipulating the
process again, I marvel at that.”
But oddly enough, the infighting among county insiders was not the
most fascinating part of last Wednesday’s meeting.
The weirdest and most illustrative part came when
Miami
New Times staff writer Calvin Godfrey went to
the speaker’s podium and addressed the group.
He unmasked himself as the perpetrator of a bizarre stunt a few
weeks past. Godfrey wrote a story about a preacher
in
Homestead who was petitioning the task force to
replace the ethics commission with a public dunking
stool, the better to punish government
ne’er-do-wells.
Godfrey admitted that he’d made up the preacher and even called
members of the task force pretending to be the
preacher, in order to write this strange story. “I
hoped to make this unmasking more dramatic by
shaving right here at the podium,” he began, before
explaining that he broke journalistic conventions
for a good reason.
“The words ‘tough on crime’ have become a catch-all phrase in this
county, but who’s getting tough on the
County Commission?” he asked. “People are fed up,
and most share a feeling that government here is so
thoroughly corrupt, it’s not even worth thinking
about. I disagree, and that’s why I invented Pastor
Simon Graves and his modest proposal. It was a
stunt, but aimed at getting people to think a little
more about government.”
Mission
accomplished.
Comments? E-mail
wakefield@miamisunpost.com.
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