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Mayoral candidate and Commissioner
Simon Cruz one-upped termed-out Mayor David Dermer
hoping for museum votes. Photo by Jorge Barreiro/firedogphoto.com |
Last week, while going over the
budget, the Miami Beach City Commission faced a
tricky dilemma: Make a special exception and grant the
Miami Beach Holocaust Memorial the money it
failed to acquire through the proper channels and risk
setting a bad example and alienating other nonprofits,
or refuse to give the funds and risk upsetting the
Jewish community.
In the end, the commission played a good hand of election-year
politics.
It all
began earlier this year, when the Holocaust Memorial
staff screwed up and didn’t file their application on
time for a $10,000 grant from the Cultural Arts
Council, and thus didn’t get the cash.
So
Jimmy Resnick, the vice president of the memorial,
showed up at the Sept. 26 budget hearing asking for
the money. He told a tale of woe about a mix-up with
the grant writer he hired, and that the application
deadline fell in the middle of the Passover holidays.
Commissioners Richard Steinberg and Simon Cruz made a
motion to cut a check, but City Manager Jorge
Gonzalez protested.
“I can
tell you it’s not your wisest move,” Gonzalez
said. He spoke of budget cuts and the many groups
who turned their applications in on time and
still didn’t get the funds they were expecting.
Giving the Holocaust Memorial money would set a bad
precedent, but if the commission insisted on it, perhaps
half of what Resnick was asking for would be better,
Gonzalez said.
“At least
you’re sending a better message than simply saying,
‘don’t worry about applying, if you come here at the end
of September we’re going to give you what you asked
for,’” Gonzalez said.
Termed-out mayor David Dermer backed Gonzalez. “I’m not
going to support this because this opens Pandora’s
box with everybody,” Dermer said.
He didn’t stop there.
“I will
give you a commitment that when I leave office I will
help you raise the money privately,” Dermer said.
Cruz,
who’s running for Dermer’s job, followed the
mayor’s lead and upped the ante.
“I commit
from my campaign fund to provide, after the
election, an amount half of what you’re asking for,”
Cruz said.
The
commission then voted unanimously — minus Jerry
Libbin, who was on a cruise — to deny
Resnick’s request.
Festival
Hell
The
North Beach Development Corporation is in financial
ruin and the city of Miami Beach is now directly
running the Miami Beach Festival of the Arts.
That much is certain.
But who
actually directed the festival in 2006? A memo from City
Manager Jorge Gonzalez stated that NBDC Events
Coordinator Brian Huether directed the event
since 2004. However, Jenna Ward, a former NBDC
events coordinator, pointed out that it was she who
actually ran the event in 2006.
The
SunPost reported Gonzalez’s statement in an Aug. 30
article about NBDC’s financial woes headlined “Oh, the
Irony.” Ward then sought a small correction because she
feared the report would unfairly contradict her
resume. “It would just help me out,” said Ward, who
now plans events for the city of Hollywood.
Murmurs
confirmed Ward’s assertion with a phone call to an
apologetic Gary Farmer, the cultural affairs program
manager for the city of Miami Beach. “One year NBDC
hired an in-house coordinator [Ward] who produced it,”
Farmer said. But, unfortunately, NBDC lost the financial
backing to rehire Ward and instead rehired Huether as a
consultant in 2007. At any rate, Huether, now retained
by the city of Miami Beach, will be in charge of running
the Festival of the Arts in 2008. Well, we’re pretty
sure anyway.
Orange
Bowl Discussion (or Debate)
Speaking
of irony, a forum about the future of Museum Park
will be held at the Orange Bowl Stadium on
Thursday, Oct. 4, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Since the University of Miami announced this is
the last year the Hurricanes will play football there,
the 70-year-old structure will likely meet the wrecking
ball.
Parks
activist Steve Hagen hopes the Orange Bowl will
be the site for a counteroffensive against the
tax-funded construction of a new Miami Science Museum
and new Miami Art Museum on top of
Bicentennial Park.
“If you
agree that a wonderful, green Bicentennial Park, where a
natural experience could be the focus instead of museums
and concrete-laden plazas, then please speak up for a
green natural park at a public review of the Cooper
Robertson plans for Bicentennial,” Hagen wrote in a
broadcast e-mail to media and residents. “Remember,
Miami ranks 55 out of 55 cities in terms of park space
per resident. If we double our parks, we would still
be last, so we must preserve and make our existing parks
as green as possible.”
Murmurs, an idealist at heart who just wants everyone to
get along, wants to see a free exchange of ideas between
museum and park advocates. Failing that, Murmurs wants
to see a good old-fashioned yelling fest.
So
Miami-Dade County residents (that’s right — it is your
bond money that’s paying for this, not just Miami
dwellers), come on down to the Orange Bowl. It’s located
at 1501 N.W. Third St. For more info, call
305-416-1286.
Silence Is
Required
Only in
Florida can a legal settlement go down in flames just
because a taxpayer thinks about disagreeing in a public
hearing.
Apparently
Oakland Park neighborhood homeowners weren’t too
crazy about the fact that Miami City Commission in May
changed the zoning of 2.59 acres of land owned by Katia
and George Traikos’ Little River Plaza LLC at
399 N.E. 82nd Terrace from single-family residential
to medium-density multifamily residential. So they sued
the city. Little River Plaza joined the suit as an
“intervenor” and eventually worked out a deal to
zone the land as duplex residential, which allowed it to
build only 18 units per acre instead of 65
units per acre.
Yet there
was this footnote: “Intervenor has the right to revoke
its consent to this agreement.” In other words, if
anyone complained about the agreement during a public
hearing, the matter would go back to court.
And so on
Aug. 30 the Miami City Commission prepared to bless the
settlement agreement.
Elvis
Cruz,
an activist from Morningside, stood up and approached
the podium. He only had time to give his name and
address when Little River Plaza’s attorney
interrupted him and announced the deal was off.
“I studied
the settlement agreement at great length before the
meeting,” Cruz told Murmurs via e-mail. “The settlement
agreement did not dissolve if a member of the public
merely spoke at the public hearing, only if someone
objected, which I did not. The attorneys misrepresented
the material terms of the settlement agreement in
violation of their ethical obligations and the First
Amendment.” Cruz added that he only wanted to present
city officials with a letter from the Trust for
Public Land, which was interested in purchasing the
parcel as part of the Little River preserve.
Calls to
City Attorney Jorge Fernandez and Oakland Park
attorney Tucker Gibbs went unanswered at
deadline. Eileen Mehta, Little River’s attorney,
explained that state administrative law allows a lawsuit
intervenor to pull out of a settlement if anyone objects
in a public hearing. She said Cruz was informed of this
at the meeting but he decided to speak anyway. “We think
it’s unfortunate; it’s not what the neighbors
wanted.” So, if Cruz didn’t publicly object, why did
Mehta pull the deal off the table?
As for the
Trust for Public Land, which would pay for the property
with funds from the city, Mehta said, “Hey, they can
always make an offer.”
“Certainly
there’s a higher value for land that is zoned 65 units
per acre than 18,” Mehta said.
