What Is the Correlation Between Universal Health Care and Federal Embargos? Perhaps Michael Moore Will Find Out.

I’d like to thank Rebecca Wakefield for the much-needed article about our dismal health care system in this country [“Critical State,” published March 22]. I’ve been one of those fortunate people who have had the chance to travel around the world and to see most of the advanced nations of the world. With the exception of this one, all other advanced nations have health care for all. What’s curious is that our health care, despite being available to only a few, is one of the most expensive health care systems in the world. It is also not the best. This has been borne out in study after study. I agree with Ms. Wakefield that our health care system is one gaping wound.

I would like to disagree with Ms. Wakefield in one regard, and it is Michael Moore. Ms. Wakefield said that in his new documentary about our damaged health care system, Sicko, Michael Moore would probably show no sensibility by comparing our unavailable health care with Cuba’s very available one. I find that that would be a plus. After all, it should embarrass us that people in a very poor, downtrodden Communist country that has been economically disabled for a half-century by the U.S. embargo receive health care, while in our country that does not exist. 

Hopefully, there will soon be health care for all here in the U.S., as there is in all the other advanced nations.

Sarita Stein

Miami

Only You Can Prevent NBDC From Disappearing

To the Editor,

This letter is in response to your article concerning the lack of funding for North Beach Development Corporation [“Strapped for Cash,” published March 22].

Nineteen years ago, the federal government deemed North Beach to be a blighted neighborhood. So they dedicated funds to help revitalize our commercial districts. NBDC was created to help administer those funds. As time went on, NBDC became the champion of the community. We have assisted in the creation of various homeowners associations, spearheaded the rehab of the Byron-Carlyle Theatre, brought entertainment back to the North Beach Bandshell. NBDC works as a liaison between developers and the city to assist in getting projects completed. We are working with the county to get the beach behind Canyon Ranch renourished with sand. When the residents were in arms over the 63rd Street Flyover demolition, or when FDOT wanted to eliminate 100 parking spaces on Harding Avenue, it was NBDC that they turned to for assistance. The list goes on and on.

Yes, our role in the community has increased. The businesses and residents have demanded results from NBDC. But the community is unwilling to pay for these needed services. The federal government has discontinued its CDBG grants; the city, faced with budget constraints, gives us a token contribution; and membership is down. As a result, NBDC has cut staff and moved into smaller quarters, which are being donated by the Miami Beach Community Health Center. We have also created various fundraising events to help raise the dollars needed to fund the operation.

If the community wants NBDC to continue fighting for their neighborhood, they need to step up to the plate. If you’re a resident, become a member; it’s just $30. If you’re a business owner, become a member or make a donation. Or if you have a financial stake in the development and growth of North Beach, make a contribution. We are here to make North Beach a better place to live, but we need your help.

Mark Weithorn, past president

North Beach Development Corporation

Witness a Crazy Plan Being Enacted by a Crazy City Government

I hope that you will attend the Miami 21 presentation of the Northeast Quadrant on March 24 at the Archbishop Curley at Notre Dame High School [Murmurs, “Miami Blackjack,” published March 22].

The entire city will be upzoned to have the commercial (C-1) [district] extend four blocks in from the commercial corridors, of which there are 17 dividing up the neighbors, plus major arteries such as Biscayne Boulevard and U.S. 1. Those properties, including tens of thousands of single-family homes, will then all be taxed for the “highest and best use,” raising the taxes enormously. The neighborhoods do not want this and have tried for three years to get the city and DPZ to accept this. DPZ assured the public at a meeting in Overtown last year that if neighborhoods want to remain zoned R-1 and R-2, they will do it.

Since then, the written documents from more than a dozen neighborhoods submitted to DPZ have been ignored. Instead, the developers and city officials in the CIP and Planning and Zoning have colluded to ignore the existing neighborhoods and turn them into piles of cement like downtown, Wynwood, the upper Biscayne Corridor, etc. Now they are trying to shove all these code changes down our throats before we can even understand the ramifications.

I am a retired person very happy in my lovely house who will have to leave the city as a virtual refugee. Miami 21 is a crazy scheme hatched by a crazy city government that is deluded into thinking that this inappropriate form of urban planning belongs here, and that if they pour enough cement, Miami will instantly turn into Paris, New York or London. 

Please come to the meeting Saturday and talk to residents and people from Miami Neighborhoods United, who will be there. Do not only write the glowing words and bullshit that the city hands out, with the color brochures and little maps and rows of numbers that Einstein couldn’t figure out in 10 years! And that the PAB and Zoning Board and City Commission are supposed to vote on very soon because suddenly the mayor is in a rush to get it passed. We have to fight this with all our strength, including taking the city and its top officials to court.

Judy Sandoval

Miami

What’s With the Lambasting, SunPost? And How ’Bout a Phone Call?

Gentlemen:

I am writing in response to your March 8 editorial [“CRA Should Stop Giving in to Fear … and Giving Away Public Money].

In that no one from the SunPost gave me an opportunity to respond before the editorial was published, I would like to do so now so that you have an opportunity to correct several inaccuracies.

Last summer, the Miami Community Redevelopment Agency requested that Carlisle Development Group submit an application for tax credit financing for Lyric Promenade to the Florida Housing Finance Corporation in their special application cycle for Hurricane Impacted Counties. When that request was made, the CRA had not yet agreed to convey the land to the partnership of which CDG was a member. In other words, the CRA asked us to put together an extremely complex application for funding on THEIR LAND, as an accommodation. We did so willingly, and without any charge whatsoever for the efforts of at least a half dozen individuals on staff.

The CRA further needed CDG to advance the state application fees and other associated out-of-pocket costs because time was short and the approval process for CRA disbursements is cumbersome. The CRA promised to repay CDG if the site control issues were not resolved in time. We took them at their word, and proceeded to apply. Unfortunately, the application was unsuccessful, solely because the site control deficiencies could not be cured in time.

In short, we performed complicated and extensive services ON BEHALF of the CRA, totally free of charge. The monies we were owed ($10,285.75) represent nothing more than out-of-pocket costs associated with those services, i.e. the state application fee and other costs such as legal and architectural charges. The process of applying for tax credits from the State of Florida is complicated and competitive. Should the CRA have been successful in their efforts to win tax credit financing, they would have been in an advantageous position to move forward on a portion of this very important development, with or without CDG.

To be lambasted by your publication for trying to do something constructive, and for keeping their commitment to us, is totally inappropriate and unfair.

Yours sincerely,

Lloyd J. Boggio

President, Carlisle Development Group

We’re Part of SoFi, Too! And If You Want to Check Us Out, Here’s Our Web Site, Address and Room Number

Dear Angie,

I read your article “The New SoFi Posse” in this week’s stories [published March 15]. We are a new synagogue led by Rabbi Shragi Mann, Chabad in South Beach, (www.chabadinsouthbeach.com). The synagogue is located at Fourth and Ocean in the Wave Hotel, meeting room A. We have services on Friday night at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday morning at 9:30 a.m.

Since we are an organization operating South of Fifth we would like to participate in the neighborhood association. We are concerned with the growth of our synagogue and the betterment of the community.

Dr. Bert Pariser

Miami Beach

World War II: A Conflict We Actually Managed to Win

Dear Editor:

In a March 22 letter, Frank Del Vecchio, responding to excellent pieces by Angie Hargot, generously referred to my military career as an air force bomber gunner many years ago [Letters to the Editor, “A Letter From the Newly Minted President of the Angie Hargot Fan Club”].

However, in the interest of full disclosure, he should have told your readers that the bombers were called Stukas, and the air force was called, as your readers who flew Spitfires know, the Luftwaffe.

But all’s well that ends well.

Morris Sunshine

Miami Beach

Introducing the SunPost’s Defacto Columnists — If, in Fact, They Exist

Dear Letters Editor (if there is such a person):

So, I open my SunPost to my favorite part of the paper (the letters column) this week [March 22], and I’m saddened to find only three letters.

But wait, what is this? All three have allegedly been written by some very familiar authors, namely the apparently prolific Messrs. Harry Emilio Gottlieb, Frank Del Vecchio and Steve Hagen.

I say “allegedly” because some combination of these three (plus a couple of others like Harvey Slavin and Jeffrey Bradley) seem to have letters appear almost every week in the SunPost. I start to wonder if these are fictitious names made up by the “Letters Editor” when he/she doesn’t receive enough real ones to print.

If, however, these folks, and their missives, are legit, then I would suggest that, given the sheer number of letters you print from them, you might want to (for the standard media reason of “full disclosure”) start including their names each week in the list of “Contributing Writers” on the SunPost’s title page.

Or, at the least, try copying the Herald’s guidelines re printing letters from any one individual: no more frequently than once every three weeks, I believe it to be.

Hope that if you print this letter of mine (along with the usual bunch from the usual bunch) next week it doesn’t force you to have so many that you have to add a second letters page.

Marty Monroe

Bay Harbor Islands

Ready, Willing and Able to Volunteer My Time for South Pointe Park

SunPost Editor:

It seems the city planners gave no consideration to parking when agreeing to the $22.3 million pavilion with a serpentine sidewalk and sand dunes in South Pointe Park.

It’s almost impossible to find a parking spot in the existing parking lot as it is.

While working at City Hall for more than 45 years, I designed and laid out most off-street parking lots, and even did the surveying for the one north of the Eden Roc Hotel.

South Pointe Park would be better served having a beautifully landscaped parking area and a comfort facility at the ocean end, period. You can’t use a pavilion or serpentine sidewalk if you can’t find a place to park. As for the said dunes, I suggest a trip to the Sahara. I will gladly design the parking lot and do the layout work gratis.

Aristotle Ares, retired assistant director of Public Works

Miami Beach

What’s With the Title, Jimmy?

Two years ago, the city of Aventura agreed to help sponsor a superb program conducted by the FIU Biscayne Bay Society so that our residents could enjoy a higher level of art, music and cultural education.

In my opinion, it was inappropriate for FIU to include a review of the controversial book, Palestine Peace, Not Apartheid, by former President Jimmy Carter, in a series of city-sponsored events.

Critics now claim that Mr. Carter’s account of history is inaccurate. But more importantly, it was his willingness to sensationalize the conflict that made the inclusion of this book inappropriate for a city-sponsored program.

According to an online story published by NPR (National Public Radio), former President Jimmy Carter admits that when he chose the title for his book, Palestine Peace, Not Apartheid, he realized it would be provocative.

What was Jimmy Carter willing to provoke in order to sell more copies of his book? Hatred for Israel, resentment toward the United States, international divide? Intentional or not, these are the potential aftershocks of his slant.

The FIU program is an important one and our residents should continue to enjoy it. But if an author is willing to risk prejudice for promotion, that’s their business, and has no business being included in a city-supported program.

 Zev Auerbach, commissioner

City of Aventura