Tap the Tap

Ed Tobin. Photo By George Barriero/firedogphoto.com

If you were told that all it took to save a child’s life was drinking a glass of tap water at your favorite restaurant, you’d do it, right?

Now you can, thanks to Miami Beach Commissioner Ed Tobin and his aide Anthony Broad, who have been running all over town convincing restaurants to participate in UNICEF’s Tap Project.

“There are thousands of children dying every week from a lack of clean drinking water, and if I’m in a position to help, I’ve got to,” Tobin said.

During World Water Week, March 16 to March 22, restaurants around the country will ask their customers to donate $1 for the tap water they usually enjoy for free. They’ll pass those dollars on to UNICEF to get clean water for kids.

Over the next several days, light blue and white Tap Project stickers will start popping up on the windows of the Beach’s hippest restaurants. Go inside, eat a great meal and drink lots of Miami Beach’s finest tap water. When the waiter brings the bill, give an extra dollar or more for the agua.

By donating $1, you can provide safe drinking water to one child for 40 days or 40 children for a day.

The first restaurants to sign up include: Segafredo Miami Beach, Van Dyke Café, Sibilla Ristorante, Spris, Le Bon, Tiramesu, La Folie, La Lupa di Roma, SushiSamba Dromo, Wish, News Café, Dolce Vita, Touch and Ouzo’s Greek Taverna and Bar.

UNICEF estimates that one of every five children in developing countries, 40 percent of the entire world’s population, live without reliable access to clean drinking water. Every day, about 6,000 children die from diseases related to drinking dirty water or from not drinking enough water. The World Health Organization calculates that 80 percent of all illness and infant mortality is caused by waterborne diseases, and that lack of clean water is the second largest cause of death for children under age 5.

UNICEF aims to cut the number of people without sustainable access to safe water and basic sanitation in half by 2015.

The Tap Project began last year with more than 300 New York City restaurants participating. This year, it has expanded to cities across the country. But had it not been for Tobin and Broad, Miami Beach would have been entirely left out.

“I only wish I’d found out about it a little earlier,” Tobin said, adding that Broad is the real reason the Tap Project is in Miami Beach.

Broad told Murmurs he heard about the project from a friend in advertising up in New York, and knew it was something Miami Beach would drink up.

“I found out about it last week and right away put it on the agenda for a proclamation,” Broad said. “It’s something that stretches beyond political issues and neighborhoods, and reaches to the core of what we’re trying to do as humans.”

For information on the Tap Project and participating restaurants, visit www.tapproject.org.

Let’s Make a Deal

Miami Beach officials are moving forward with the initial stages of a deal that would move Tremont Towing out of the Sunset Harbour neighborhood and the city’s maintenance property management building out of Flamingo Park.

A big scoop? Not really. It was open discussion at last week’s Citywide Projects and Finance Committee meeting March 6. There, commissioners voted to spend up to $50,000 for architectural concepts and other costs associated with exploring whether or not the deal makes sense.

It’s contingent on developer Scott Robins, who owns parcels of land on either side of Tremont Towing on Bay Road across from Publix. Robins believes he can get Tremont’s property and combine it with his. The city could then build a 600-space parking garage. Robins would develop and control ground-floor retail space, but doesn’t want any part of construction.

“I’m not going to build a garage,” Robins told commissioners. “I’m willing to sell my air rights and you guys do whatever you want.”

The city estimates Robins’ air rights to be worth about 50 percent of the total land costs. In total, the city is guessing that land acquisition and construction will run between $25 and $30 million.

All three Sunset Harbour homeowners associations want to get Tremont Towing and its insane, rap music-blaring drivers out of the hood.

Flamingo Park residents are equally happy because the deal would mean the city’s maintenance building in the park — which was supposed to be temporary 30 years ago — would be torn down to make room for more green space.

“That maintenance facility doesn’t belong in Flamingo Park,” Jack Johnson, co-chair of the Flamingo Park Neighborhood Association, told Murmurs.

The city also owns three pieces of land at 1833 Bay Road, across the street from the proposed new project. City officials have long wanted to move the maintenance building to that site, but couldn’t because there’s no place to park its 75 vehicles. The garage would make it possible, and would likely store up to 120 city vehicles at a time.

Commissioners gave city officials and Robins 90 days to figure it all out and let them know.

Mobile Mayor

Starting next week, Miami Beach Mayor Matti Herrera Bower will be moving her office out into the community when she reinstates the Mayor on the Move program.

For Murmurs, whose office is a block from Bower’s, it’ll mean driving, but hey, it’s about constituents, not the media.

“It’s important to bring the Mayor’s office into the different neighborhoods to listen to the ideas and concerns of residents and businesses,” Bower said. “We are also bringing city staffers and, of course, all the commissioners are invited to attend.”

Mayor on the Move will be a monthly series that will meet 10 times this year.

“It will be more informal than formal,” said A.C. Weinstein, Bower’s chief of staff. “There’s no set program. Mayor on the Move will take on a life of its own.”

Weinstein reminded Murmurs that the traveling office began in 2002 with his last boss, Mayor David Dermer.

The first Mayor on the Move program will be held at 6 p.m. Monday, March 17, at the Miami Beach Hispanic Community Center, located at 1701 Normandy Drive.