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 venture, Virgin Trains LLC. is that this relatively modest investment would be used by public officials to abrogate their responsibilities to the community under the SMART plan.

It's one thing for a politician to reject the ideals of the SMART plan, and to work towards their own vision, but it's quite another to claim this likewise modest project as fulfillment of the SMART plans Northeast corridor.

Lead agencies are FDOT and TPO

I want to make it clear, as some of these administrators move forward with their careers, that the Virgin Trains station near Aventura is not fulfillment of the SMART plan, and I have no idea why even journalists are now starting to make that claim.

It's inevitable, then, that Alice Bravo and Carlos Gimenez will start making the same claim. That they have implement the Northeast corridor of the SMART plan, however I simply ask that you look at this document which clearly indicates that the NE corridor is supposed to be a series of stations, not one in downtown and one by county line.

The Utility of Grandstanding?

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

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

Citizens' Independent Transportation Trust Special Meeting Thursday, October 10, 2019 6pm

These are the necessary documents a person would need to read by 6pm to make a fully informed decision about whether or not to support an item before the CITT.

Open Letter on Incorporation Facts

Neighbors,

We will vote in November on whether to become a city. If Yes wins, our county commissioner will select a committee of residents to develop a founding document, called a charter. This committee will present their charter to the county commission, whose approval results in a second election to approve the charter. Yes in the second election would allow the County  to create the city.
Please allow the following considerations to inform your decision. I have detailed many of these facts with documentation on my blog. I invite you to E-mail me or reach me on social media if you have specific questions or want to start a discussion.

Status Quo (or the situation today)

In our community many people get by most of the time without much issue, but we do ourselves disservice if we accept the situation today as good enough.

• Severe parking shortage in the condominiums
• Flooding of properties and roads during storms
• Extreme rush hour traffic on our most important thruways
• Car break ins and thefts
• Armed robberies
• Local tax money funding services in other areas of the county (donor community)
• Sharing a county district with other areas, decreasing the attention our representatives give us, and the services we get for what we spend

If We Become a City we would

• elect a local city council, hires employees to maintain the city,
• contract or develop locally dedicated police, increasing service substantially, but also greatly increasing the cost
• develop a local planning and zoning code, as well as enforcement mechanisms
• Pay ~5% of our budget to county for 7 years as mitigation

I cannot quickly or easily answer whether taxes will go up if we incorporate, though they can go up even if we don’t. Many neighbors would pay marginally more in taxes for increased safety and property values, which could come with a well managed city. If we become a city we must work hard to make it a good city. Miami Dade County has many rather unfortunate cities. Most of them, in fact.

To be an exception we need to work exceptionally.

With great hopes for our future,

Prem Lee Barbosa

Click on map to see original size.

NEMAC Timeline Part 3 January 21, 2015

The Mayor's Memorandum included a convenient timeline highlighting a period in which the county stopped considering the question of incorporation.

Over 6 years

I don't know if the NEMAC completed their study by April of 2005, but since it doesn't appear in the timeline I assume as much. The Board of County Commissioners established a moratorium on incorporation in November of 2005. A moratorium prohibits an activity. (Like President Obama's 2010 moratorium on offshore drilling.)
In 2012 the BCC changed its mind and lifted the moratorium. Two and a half years later Commissioner Heyman reintroduced the NEMAC officially. However according the the Mayor's Memorandum the NEMAC reconvened February 2013, almost two years before.
To this date I have not discovered under whose authority they met, nor who called any of these meeting, but I have inquired with county staff.
I also await the minutes for these NEMAC meetings. Hopefully those can address some of these concerns.
On to the Resolution!

East and North to Highland Oaks Neighborhood Walk Around August 14, 2018

As I planned, on my walk today I traveled East into the single family residential neighborhood. I didn't walk yesterday due to the rainy weather. Likely in the future I won't skip my walk on account of rain.

While I took many photos I didn't necessarily do a lot of noticing because I did not have familiarity with much of what I came across. I live pretty close to where I usually work, but I tend to take the same route every day.

I availed myself to the chance of seeing places I hadn't before. For the most part I let the incorporation signs guide me!

So expect to see a bunch of those, and some random other thoughts. Press on an image 

Look at these dipping swales! I wonder how much higher the road is than the first floor of the condominiums on the north side of 191st Street. Also notice how much the driveway drips fro the street to the parking lot.

This part of the neighborhood has terrible car problems. Not only do we drive 30 mph down a high density residential street, with virtually no pedestrian crossing ability, but condos have given up lawn space, an sometimes cars resort to parking in the county swale.

The first NO sign I noticed on my walk. I've seen it hundreds of times, so it blend in to the scenery for me at this point. I wonder if the condominium association board approved the placement of this sign.

I also noticed this second tower above the building 1701. It has the same style of the other tower at the building center.

My block ends at a T. On Thursday's walk I went right so today I turned left.

The first YES sign on the walk. More of both to come.

This street corner has amazing shade from these two trees in the swale. Compare it to the shade-free places around it. I love tree cover! (Though make sure they're properly maintained.)

Organic bananas anyone?

Look at these hanging pods!

This tree took my breath away. What an attention hog!

I always wondered about this odd driveway situated just off Ives Dairy Road. It connects to at least five properties. One of them with the NO sign in the previous image.

I didn't want to stand in the middle of the road to take this image, but there's debris from a crash right in the middle. Ives Dairy and NE 24th is a traffic nightmare.

After stopping in at Highland Oaks Middle to say hello to some staff, I went right on my way home. Look how traffic gets stuck at 10:35 am on a Tuesday. 

After crossing the street on my walk signal I took this picture to show how traffic from over 30 seconds ago still hadn't moved. 

Though on private properties, this is one of the only views I have seen of any of the lakes surrounded by private single family residences. I wish the lakes were a bit more accessible to the comm.

Seems even video cameras didn't stop thieves from taking a couple bicycle wheels. Never leave bicycles in publicly visible places without having all easily detachable components under lock, preferably a metal U-Lock.

Aside from the all-access guard gates, I don't know any other entrances to this part of the neighborhood, but one could easily traverse this fence. 

Another one of these bodies of water which take up a significant portion of the surface area around here.

Yes sign on the left

The truck in the middle actually covers up a third YES sign. Bad timing on my part.

Based only on this walk around my neighborhood I think most people with an opinion support incorporation. I will continue to photograph signs I find throughout my walks. Perhaps I'll upgrade to bicycling soon so I can get a little further, like down to West Dixie, or up to 215th.