March 19, 2014 HOA Incorporation & Annexation Update

The Sky Lake and Highland Lakes Area Homeowners Association does the only lobbying with the county on behalf of the Northeast unincorporated municipal service area. All members of the HOA with I communicate seem either willing to help me, or forthright in directing me to someone they think will.
One such neighbor, Lenny Feldman, a former president of the HOA, provided me a very interesting document he developed. This provides some insight into the thoughts and concerns of some of my neighbors. It also demonstrates how the numbers have changed over the years.

It starts off with stuff I already know about the "Options" regarding changing boundaries: incorporation, annexation, merger. Keep in mind that many people living in the incorporation have the fantasy of annexation by Aventura, so it certainly stood out to me on the next pages where it mentions Aventura twice:

Fourteen years ago Aventura already rejected the possibility of annexation

Another rejection in 2008. Why conduct a study during a moratorium?

Not only that, but it also mentions the Planning Advisory Board recommending incorporation, and an analysis by an independent third party:

Also, two new documents to find!

Given this information, it seems the Board of County Commissioners would have voted on an incorporation referendum as soon as the District 4 Commissioner would put it on the agenda. Telling from the timeline in the Mayor's Memorandum that would have been the next step. Except perhaps for the moratorium[s] the BCC placed on annexation and incorporation:

Why did they have to do it twice?

While I invite you to read the document itself at the bottom of the page, I point out a few other interesting tidbits from the presentation.

Notable dates

In the "Initial Figures" section I notice the UMSA county rate went from 2.447 mills down to 1.928 mills, a primarily revenue neutral move given increased property values.

I could say many other things about the details in the presentation, but they mostly rehash things I wrote about in my previous posts on the subject, however I will leave you with a snippet from their Cons and Pros section. The item on the left is a con, the item on the right is a pro for incorporation:

While I don't hold it against them, these items reveal the diversity of thought on the subject. While many neighbors in favor of incorporation argue that the city can succeed without raising taxes, this presentation from 2014 explicitly categorizes the LOW level of county taxes as a burden on a new city, and that at the time of its publishing the understanding seemed to be that the incorporation area had a budget shortfall. I will certainly look more in to that.

May 2018 "Incorporation?? Information Sheet for NE MAC Area"

Commissioner Sally Heyman representing the Northeast unincorporated municipal service area (among other places) on the Board of County Commissioners in Miami-Dade County handed out this information sheet at recent public meetings regarding incorporation of the Northeast UMSA.
I wanted to make this available for my neighbors and, as usual, make comments about whatever stood out to me in light of all the things I have read and written in the last few weeks.

The resolution actually requires the new city to contract with Miami-Dade County Police Department for a total of four years. Three regular contract years and at least one year of transition, as I wrote about in my review of the resolution exhibits.
I wouldn't find this technicality such a big deal if it weren't for the fact that MDCPD wants a lot more money for policing than they currently charge us. You can see this clearly in the Office of Management and Budget's "Estimated Impact on UMSA Budget."
I don't have this document by itself, but it pops up in a few different places, (including this budget review) and I have recently E-mailed someone in the OMB with a request for more information about these estimates.
As regards these numbers, I want to also point out, again, that the OMB estimated we spent $3.8M on policing in 2015-16, but the NEMAC decided the new city should spend $4.8M on policing for 2016-17. That's a 26% increase in one year! They based that amount on numbers given them by the county police department and as I shewed, that number also increases 8% the next year based on county police numbers. My neighbors need to consider this mandated expense.

These details are the same for Condominiums/Multi Family

Taxes serves as a great point of contention between those who oppose and advocate for incorporation. Some against incorporation argue taxes will go up, the people for incorporation tout the official line, that we could create "a new municipality without increasing the Ad Valorem Tax Rate."
None of the reports suggest the likelihood the new city could succeed without raising taxes, it only gets argued that it can succeed. Color me skeptical of the argument. Most other cities in the county have raised taxes. All but a handful really!
Given the weight of facts it seems likely a new city would raise taxes. I certainly understand why many object to the idea of higher taxes, but at the same time I also understand the argument for more revenue. Regardless of the needs a community decides on, I definitely think public officials have a tremendous responsibility to uphold the strictest standards for how they spend the money of their neighbors.

Estimated in the resolution at around $600,000 the first year

I definitely think neighbors should read this document if they haven't read the 71 page resolution as it does provide a basic and honest overview. I don't think addresses issues at the forefront of my mind, but I can't fault anyone for my personal preferences.

I do find misleading suggestions that a new city could succeed without raising taxes. The documentation provided to the public in regards to the incorporation vote resolution do not sufficiently justify the suggestion. More importantly, the members of the charter committee, or the city council, will determine the tax rate at their will, despite and regardless of promises made today. My neighbors should understand these things.

Incorporation Question: Police Part 1: Budget

I reviewed the NEMAC Pro-forma budget. I harped on the line item for policing services because it came out to over half the budget. Combine that with what I pointed out as number 4 in my first analysis of the resolution, which explains that the area already pays a special tax for special services.

In this post I review the police budgets provided by county staff, used by the NEMAC in estimating their police service number of $4.86M and how much that number grew in a year.

NEMAC Timeline Part 2 April 13, 2004

When the Board of County Commissioners created the Northeast Municipal Advisory Committee they gave it one year to complete its duties. A year later when they failed to do so the BCC had to create and establish the committee again.

NEMAC Timeline Part 1 April 8, 2003

April 8, 2003
Commissioner Sally A Heyman placed on the BCC agenda a "Resolution creating and establishing the Northdeast Dade Advisory Committee."
The resolution language states that "a group of residents...expressed an interest in creating a new municipality...or annexing to one or more existing." Resolution No. R-341-03 attempted to attend to that interest in six sections.

June 5, 2018 Mayor's Memorandum, Part 3: Exhibit 2 NEMAC Budget Review

The mayor included this budget review as the second exhibit to his memorandum.

"Northeast Dade MAC Budget Review," drafted by PMG Associates, Inc., a company which provides economics, marketing and management services, provided a final, third party approval of the NEMAC budget necessary to bundle everything together before the Board of County Commissioners.
 The BCC voted in June of 2018 to pass a resolution filled with information compiled most recently in 2016, much of it older than that.

I greatly expected this report to finally provide the rigorous statistical methodology appropriate for the question at hand. After all everyone wants to know whether a city can run on the same level of taxes the residents currently pay to the county. Proponents argue our status as a donor community implies we could get improved services for the same level of taxation. Opponents point to the overwhelming majority of municipalities in the county who raised taxes to pay for maintaining their cities.
Given the general lack of accounting anywhere else in the resolution I prayed that here, in the words of unbiased, objective, third party, private professionals--HERE of all places--I could get some data crunching, but no! Not a bit. What an utter disappointment.

June 5, 2018 Mayor's Memorandum, Part 1

On June 5, 2018 County Attorney Abigail Price-Williams sent memorandum to the Board of County Commissioners regarding Incorporation of Northeast Miami-Dade. Given that the resolution to the Board appears more than half way through the document I don't really understand the order, but the first several dozen pages cover other important documents referenced in the resolution on incorporation:

• Mayor's Memorandum
• Northeast Dade MAC Adopted Pro-forma Budget (Exhibit 1)
• Northeast Dade MAC Budget Review (Exhibit 2)
• Northeast Dade Incorporate Report (Exhibit 3)

In this post I cover the first point. As usual go to the bottom of this post for the entire 71 page document.

SPOILER: If you read the end you find out the mayor didn't write this.

 Although unmentioned, it seems the Mayor did a lot of thinking prior to June 5 because their demands feature prominently in the text of the resolution, with unambiguous reference to this memorandum, which appears before all other documents. If you recall I concerned myself with the extent to which his demands were requirements of the Charter, and whether they represent a reasonable responsibility to the residents of the area under concern.

1. To determine the fairness of this requirement one would need to look both at what changed in 2000, and the terms of mitigation payments from all municipalities since 2000. I also wonder about who required all municipalities to pay so, since 2000, whether it was a resolution of the board, or something else.

2. I've mentioned issues here, both regarding the OUAD and Greynolds Park. The latter primarily because the residents remain unaware of the effects this jurisdictional control will have upon the city, and what responsibilities it will have for the portions of the park within its boundaries. The former, Ojus, concerns the community because of whatever decisions the county might make in contradiction to the interests of the adjacent community. It also seems like a chilling precedent to demand jurisdictional control within a municipality. One neighbor stated:

There are 14 such designated districts in the county...I was able to determine that only one district currently lies within the borders of a municipality.

This definitely deserves more research.

While I expect to cover the various budgets thrown around as part of the incorporation effort, it concerns me in all of them that the cost of Policing represents over half the proposed budget. While it may be an appropriate amount of money given what our community may need, I have to wonder how much an increase in spending that represents, and what exactly we get out of spending nearly $4.5M a year on policing.

Moving on..

Notice various things left out of the financial analysis by County staff:

• Canal maintenance revenues and expenses
• proprietary activities such as building, zoning, and solid waste
• fire and library districts

Neighbors also have concern that the proposed budgets did not include mitigation fees. Therefore I warn myself that I will need to do some research and writing about the budget as that seems like the most important concern of all in the incorporation debate, specifically, "can the city run itself at current tax levels, or must it increase taxes to achieve its basic promise of service?"

Click on the picture to see a larger version

I find this background so useful that I wanted to feature it in my first post on the incorporation issue, but I didn't want to lose focus of the question at hand. I have plenty of time yet to document the minutiae of the incorporation process begun on April 8, 2003. At some point I may go further back still.

I will again note that the last point reiterates the PAB recommendation that the new municipality retain control of the Ojus Urban Area District. This particularly irks me because on the next page it says

Actually I can't find this notice previously.

Where? Where exactly was this previously noted because I can't find it anywhere!?

This paragraph kind of confuses me.

Anyone feel free and chime in to explain this one for me. It seems the proposed municipality will not be required to contract for specialized services with county police because the residents pay that directly to the county, and prior to 2008 municipalities were required to pay for these services separately? Who provides special services to the municipal government? Eh, still confused about this.

Here's the paragraph that got me aggravated just a minute ago. I understand the importance of the SMART Corridor to county mobility planning, but this paragraph does not establish the precedence for this demand. What's more, looking at recent activity of the BCC we have no indication they will do anything with this area any time soon. I wonder what logic the PAB had in recommending the new city retain that control. Perhaps they believed a city could help prepare the area for the county's vision better than the county currently does?

I love Greynolds Park and am glad the mayor pays at least some lip service to the reason why they plan to maintain control. It doesn't answer any of my concerns as to why any of the park will be within the boundaries of the new city at all, and what responsibilities that will bring to the new city.

These four pump stations have come up before. The only things I'd want to know regard who owns and manages them, and what control of or responsibilities to the new city would have for the stations.

The mayor's memorandum raises plenty more questions, but also provides directions of where to look for some  answers. Some of my next posts will cover the exhibits to the mayor's memorandum.