Primer on the structure of the Miami City commission.
The City of Miami has a 5 seat commission which creates resolutions and ordinances for the city, and a mayor who administers the functions of the city and has chair powers over the city commission. The mayor can (must? does? I'm not sure) appoint a member of the commission to act as the chair on his behalf.
The public should understand that to pass ordinances and resolutions only 3 votes on the commission are required, however the mayor can veto these actions. Overturning the veto would require 4 votes of the commission.
Now the immediate background of the situation at hand.
In November of 2019 the make-up of commission changed after an election, creating a voting block of three white, Cuban-American career, politicians, and despite regularly paying lip-service to democracy, they more accurately act as though they were oligarchs in old Havana.
Back-slap and a Half
The moment Alex Diaz de la Portilla (his last name translates to of the little door) took his seat on the city commission he, Manolo Reyes and Joe Carollo aimed their political weaponry squarely at mayor Francis Suarez, and the prevailing order. There's a new order in the city of Miami.
As their first order of business the trio aimed wanted to fire the city manager. To justify this they moved to have the Auditor General investigate claims the city manager did illegal improvements to his home. The mayor vetoed this command, a move which the city attorney contends is invalid. And simultaneously commissioner Manolo Reyes issues an individual request to the Auditor General, citing language from the city code to justify the jurisdiction of such a directive.
At this point I don't actually know the status of that request, and whether the Auditor General has pursued it. However before that could come to a head the city manager offered a letter of resignation, effective date to be determined. A rather sly, confusing move. By promising to resign at some point did the manager and mayor think they could avoid the fiasco of an investigation into the actions of city administration for the benefit of the manager.
The big, dirty, power move however came when the trio, by way of DLP, passed a resolution removing Ken Russell from the chair of two Community Redevelopment Agency boards and giving those seats to themselves, as well as the next week appointing each other to be the co-chairs.
The Commissioner Doth Protest Too Much, Me Thinks.
This all then brings me to my final, perhaps rather unimportant point: Commissioner Ken Russell whines too much. At both the meetings where the trio switched up CRA leadership Commissioner Russell made it a point to grand stand over his progress with the CRAs and the pettiness of the power grab. However, I can't help but remember many things local citizen blogger, Al Crespo, wrote about Ken Russell in the first year of his office.
And I remember them because it seems that instead of handling the new reality of an opposition majority on the city commission, Commissioner Ken Russell wants to whimper into oblivion. Unless he can find a way to make good with DLP, whom he offended during the election campaign for funding a competitor, Russell will get nothing done in his current term. And he spends all future meetings with the same demeanor he's had so far this year, he'll be known undoubtedly as a lame duck, an ineffective whiner who cares more about looking good than getting anything done.
(Links may not be appropriate for a work environment.)
July 18, 2016
Septeber 18, 2016
Approximately November 2016
Citizen blog concerned with quality of journalism, current events, transparency/access to public information, and community building. Interests include public records, policy analysis, accountability, ethics in politics.
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
Friday, January 24, 2020
CITT Special Meeting to Consider Giving Virgin Trains $50M+
This is an old post that I didn't publish in time, but decided to go ahead and get it up as an example of something I did.
Since Tri-Rail's Steven Abrams was first quoted in articles by the Miami Herald and Sun Sentinel as saying Virgin Trains was thinking about building a station in Aventura, all the focus was on them looking at Boca Raton and Hollywood.
On July 22, the Palm Beach Post suggests the thoughts are now a plan. Author Jeff Ostrowski writes that Virgin Trains "now says it will add stops at PortMiami, Aventura and on city-owned property next to Boca Raton’s library." Though they don't particularly cite whether this is actually a shift from the less committed statements by newspaper writers previously. Interesting to note in this article is that "Virgin Trains USA President Patrick Goddard proposes that Virgin Trains would pay to build the train station..."
On August 12, the Sun-Sentinel quotes Virgin Trains USA senior vice president of corporate affairs, Ben Porrittm as saying "Boca Raton, PortMiami and Aventura are our top priorities today."
Pretty early on I somehow got it in my head that Virgin Trains wanted to break ground by the end of the year. I can no longer find that link, so I won't make that claim any more. Maybe I confused a promise to announce three new stations by the end of the year with breaking ground. However in trying to search for that article I came across some interesting information about Virgin Trains USA's finances.
On June 12, The Bond Buyer reported "$950 million in bonds for Florida's Virgin Trains USA," and seeing this I couldn't help but think, why would this company need corporate welfare? Reading the article I discovered that "the FDFC sold $1.75 billion of bonds USDOT-authorized bonds on behalf of Virgin Trains..."
From an April 3 article, again from The Bond Buyer, they detail that this bond was partly used to service a previous $600 million bond offering.
I didn't even know about their bond offerings until today, however I think this demands even more attention to what the Miami Herald revealed on Friday, September 30. Published just after people many people left work, it claims "Miami-Dade may spend $76 million to build a Virgin rail station by Aventura Mall." And based on everything I know now this headline seems unfortunately accurate.
On Monday the Herald further clarified that the station would possible not include any connection for regional Tri-Rail.
---Unfinished
Since Tri-Rail's Steven Abrams was first quoted in articles by the Miami Herald and Sun Sentinel as saying Virgin Trains was thinking about building a station in Aventura, all the focus was on them looking at Boca Raton and Hollywood.
On July 22, the Palm Beach Post suggests the thoughts are now a plan. Author Jeff Ostrowski writes that Virgin Trains "now says it will add stops at PortMiami, Aventura and on city-owned property next to Boca Raton’s library." Though they don't particularly cite whether this is actually a shift from the less committed statements by newspaper writers previously. Interesting to note in this article is that "Virgin Trains USA President Patrick Goddard proposes that Virgin Trains would pay to build the train station..."
On August 12, the Sun-Sentinel quotes Virgin Trains USA senior vice president of corporate affairs, Ben Porrittm as saying "Boca Raton, PortMiami and Aventura are our top priorities today."
Pretty early on I somehow got it in my head that Virgin Trains wanted to break ground by the end of the year. I can no longer find that link, so I won't make that claim any more. Maybe I confused a promise to announce three new stations by the end of the year with breaking ground. However in trying to search for that article I came across some interesting information about Virgin Trains USA's finances.
On June 12, The Bond Buyer reported "$950 million in bonds for Florida's Virgin Trains USA," and seeing this I couldn't help but think, why would this company need corporate welfare? Reading the article I discovered that "the FDFC sold $1.75 billion of bonds USDOT-authorized bonds on behalf of Virgin Trains..."
From an April 3 article, again from The Bond Buyer, they detail that this bond was partly used to service a previous $600 million bond offering.
I didn't even know about their bond offerings until today, however I think this demands even more attention to what the Miami Herald revealed on Friday, September 30. Published just after people many people left work, it claims "Miami-Dade may spend $76 million to build a Virgin rail station by Aventura Mall." And based on everything I know now this headline seems unfortunately accurate.
On Monday the Herald further clarified that the station would possible not include any connection for regional Tri-Rail.
---Unfinished
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Virgin Trains Brightline Bait & Switch
Something that concerned me greatly when Miami-Dade County decided to fund the purchase and construction of a train station for the private ...
-
This Miami Herald article , while covering a something quite interesting, is devoid of important details. The owner of a construction compan...
-
For months rumors floated about a possible renovation of the Aventura Mall food court. My interest concerns the bus stop outside the food co...
-
Something that concerned me greatly when Miami-Dade County decided to fund the purchase and construction of a train station for the private ...