Category Archives: Miami

Turnout was so low at my local precinct here in Coral Gables, that when I went to vote around 4pm and put my ballot in the drum, it fell straight to the bottom and hit with a resounding hollow CLUNK.

“Not much turnout today?” I asked the poll worker.

“Hardly anyone,” she replied.

I live in prime Gimenez territory, since this is part of the district he represented on the Commission. Slightly worrying that. Maybe they all voted early — I hear it was busy at the library on Saturday.

The choice facing voters in tomorrow’s non-partisan election for Mayor of Miami-Dade County is between a pretty-far-right budget-cutting anti-labor Republican with technocratic leanings, a reputation for probity, and the SAVE Dade endorsement, versus a maybe slightly-farther-right budget-cutting anti-labor Republican with a taste for Tammany Hall (Cuban style) politics, a reputation for shady dealings, and the endorsement of both Jeb Bush and the Latin Builders Association.

I am not one who says that it would be so refreshing to have an honest man in the Mayor’s seat that we should be excited about Carlos Gimenez, even though I plan to vote for him and suggest that readers do also.  I happen to think that his predecessor, whom the voters overwhelmingly recalled, mostly for bad reasons, likely was honest too.  That’s only part of the game.

There are, however, two good reasons to vote for Gimenez, one negative and one positive, and they suffice.  First, the surprisingly valid negative: Gimenez is s not Julio Robaina.  Robaina, an open believer in old-fashioned ethnic politics and in the legal sorts of vote-buying, would be a lousy choice even if he didn’t seem ethically challenged and in some danger of indictment.  Second, given Gimenez’s ideological baseline, he deserves credit for consistency and technocratic competence.  Gimenez was, for example, one of the lone voices against the ill-conceived stadium giveaway.  Other so-called conservatives piled on to what they must have thought was the populist gravy train.

With Gimenez, what you see is very likely what you will get.  We ought to be able to imagine better.  It is extremely easy, however, to imagine worse:  just look at the other guy.

The election is tomorrow, Tuesday June 28, 2011.  If you are registered, go vote.  If you are not registered and are eligible to vote, this would be a really good week to go down to city hall — before you forget — and take care of that detail so you are ready for the next one.

The only major public pre-election poll suggests that Gimenez will win if turnout is high on election day: Robaina seems likely to dominate the absentee vote, but the voters who say they are likely to vote in person, whether early or on election day favor Gimenez; he ought therefore to win if neither weather (storms predicted) nor complacency keeps his vote at home — and if the polls somehow managed to model the substantial absentee ballot fraud vote that seems endemic to our local politics.

First a computer-controlled voice “polled” me on the upcoming Mayor’s race – likelihood of voting, favorable/unfavorable for both candidates (I pushed the buttons for “unfavorable” to both), who you were likely to vote for (I pushed for Gimenez), party registration, gender, age group.

One minute later, the phone rings and a similar recorded voice tells me that “Hialeah Robaina” (I really do not like that phrase, I do not care if it is polling well as a negative, I think it will backfire) is the highest paid Mayor in the area, knocking down $250,000 of tax dollars to fund his “lavish lifestyle”.

At the end of it there was a five second delay – long enough for most folks to hang up – then it said it was paid for by “Common Sense Now”… whatever that might be. The disclosure laws have been reduced to a mockery.

One minute later the phone rings again. Enough already! But it’s the computer from the kids’ orthodontist calling to remind us about an appointment.

Previously: Report From the Miami-Dade Mayoral Candidate Debate

Miami-Dade County mayoral candidates Carlos Gimenez and Julio Robaina debated at the University of Miami at 5:30 p.m. today in an event organized by the Miami Foundation, The Miami Herald, and El Nuevo Herald. It was my first opportunity to see the two candidates in the same place. Just over 100 people attended in person, but there were plenty of cameras and the event will be broadcast on WPTB over the weekend.

The panelists for the “debate” — as usual more a serial answering of questions than a head-to-head debate in the Lincoln-Douglass school — were Dan Grech (WLRN Radio), Myriam Marquez (Miami Herald columnist), and Manny Garcia (El Nuevo Herald’s Executive Editor).

As usual for such events in Miami, it started late. But given this was an important event, it only started ten minutes late.

The spokesman from the Miami Foundation said that the focus of the forum would be “policies not politics” — whatever that means. Then we learned the ground rules: Two minutes for openings & closings. Ninety seconds to answer each question. Rebuttals of thirty seconds.

Personally, I find 90 and 30 second statements to be somewhat at war with the idea of substantive debate, but we live in a sound bite culture. What follows is paraphrase, unless I use quote marks. Comments in (parentheses) are my own.

I took a lot of notes, but there’s really very little point in subjecting anyone to them. With only a few exceptions, which I’ll discuss below, the two candidates sounded very much alike on policy: they are against taxes, yet plan to close the $200 – $400 million annual budget deficit — in Ginimez’s case by a combination of efficiency and demanding givebacks from the unions, in Robaina’s case either by efficiencies alone, or perhaps by a combination of efficiencies and magic. They both would support a limited increase in casino gambling. Neither has plans to do anything exciting for transport, as there’s no money to pay for it, although both said they were for increasing bus service, and Gimenez suggested that smartphone apps telling you when the next bus was due might increase ridership. (Personally, I rather doubt that will help if the bus still comes only once every blue moon.)

There were some differences in their answers to a question about global warming. The questioner noted that greater Miami is vulnerable to sea level rise, as sea level has risen 10″ since 1930. Is this a significant concern? If so what can we do to protect from this rise?

Robaina’s answer was just off-the-wall weird. He said that “we have an expert in our system,” Harvey Ruvin, the Clerk of Courts, who will have all the information. We are probably leaders in preparing without creating additional regulations.

(Personally, I have a lot of respect for Harvey Ruvin, but I’d be surprised to learn that he’s an expert on either global warming or on sea-level-rise preparedness.)

Gimenez gave a much better answer, in which he said, look at the data — it is rising, and looks like it will continue. My concern, he said, is quality of life for our kids and grandkids. We need to mitigate, put developments higher up. We need to figure out when it will affect coastal developments, prepare to mitigate it now in order to prepare for future. We will have to make this part of planning and permitting. The followup question asked, “is it rising?” Gimenez said, “yes,” the issue is how fast it will be affecting us — have to get ahead of the curve. Robaina did not choose to offer a followup answer.

Where the candidates differed most of all was that Giminez emphasized his goal of “restoring trust in Miami-Dade government”. I took that originally to be code for “I am not a crook like the other guy,” but there was one moment that made me think that maybe this was too cynical. And it wasn’t the moment where Giminez, who has a nice firefighter’s pension, grandstanded by saying he’d give back 50% of his salary in order – he claimed – to seize the moral high ground in his campaign to cut county workers’ pay.

Rather, the moment came in answer to the twelfth and final question.

The question asked, you are two self-professed Republicans, Hispanic men, what can you do to bring people together in time of divisiveness and ill-feelings?

Gimenez gave a powerful answer: He said the key was to say the same to everyone. … Everybody wants fairness and consistency. I’ll be fair and consistent.

Robaina’s answer had more of a sound of the usual promise to share the pie: My administration, he said, would be a reflection of what this community looks like. It would be inclusive. …. Everyone should feel the Mayor is accessible, will listen and will ACT.

Overall, Gimenez was more polished and articulate than Robaina, but Robaina wasn’t terrible. Other than the odd Harvey Ruvin remark, neither candidate did anything odd. I left discouraged on policy grounds: these are two pretty right-wing Republicans fighting over who is more against taxes and county workers. Despite the high-minded objectives of the Miami Trust and its helpers, policy isn’t what this election is about. It’s about personalities, and about records.

Gimenez has a reputation for honesty. Robaina does not. Gimenez has a reputation for technocratic competence. Robaina has a reputation as a pretty effective fixer, and no one in law enforcement has laid a glove on him yet. Take your pick?

With a somewhat heavy heart, I plan to vote for the technocrat. The alternative is clearly worse, although this debate, which Gimenez won only on points, did not I think make that terribly clear.

The election is June 28. Only about 16% of the eligible voters voted in the first round. It might be even less this time.

I didn’t want this election.

Unlike most people around here, I voted to retain Mayor Alvarez, in significant part because I figured we were unlikely to do any better with any alternative.

I feel somewhat vindicated.

Not that Mayor Alvarez was my dream county Mayor. Far from it. But he seemed honest and energetic. Better than most, maybe any, of the County Mayors I’ve seen in the last 18 years.

But that’s water under the bridge. Election day is upon us. No more procrastination.

Mayor’s Race

There are several hundred candidates for Mayor. No, it only seems that way. Start over.

There are a dozen candidates running for Mayor of Miami-Dade in the non-partisan contest. What’s that? Only 11? Details.

Only three of these candidates have much chance of making it into the runoff that will be required if no one gets 50%, which seems certain. And while I am fully capable of voting for a hopeless candidate if someone is wonderful enough, there’s no one like that in this race, believe me.

So lets look at the big three:

• Luther Campbell, former 2 Live Crew rapper turned businessman and newspaper columnist
• Carlos Gimenez, county commissioner until recently represented District 7 (in which I live). Importantly, he’s a former Miami city — not but not county — manager too.
• Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina.

Do I have to look at this list? Yes. Got to vote for someone.
(Was it unfair to leave out Marcelo Llorente? Maybe. But I’m leaving him out.)

OK. I know people who are voting for Luther Campbell. I can only assume that they have never read his newspaper columns. Or looked at his platform. I mean, really? Really? It’s a sort of fun column, but it doesn’t scream Mayor material.

I am prepared to stipulate that Mr. Campbell is a smart guy, and that his business experience is as relevant to governing in a snake pit as the next politically inexperienced businessman. But I’m rarely impressed by that type, and I’m not going to change even when he’s the most liberal candidate in the race with any hope of making it to the next round.

Not persuaded? He wanted to Fire Erik Spoelstra! Ok, that’s a cheap shot. But not as cheap as some of the shots in his columns.

Then there’s the front-runner, Julio Robaina. He’s raised by far the biggest campaign war chest, well over $1 million, and much of it must be from developers who are salivating at the chance to put one of their own in charge of the County. I don’t like him, and I don’t like a number of his friends. In a court of law Robaina is presumed innocent. In the court of public opinion, he looks awful guilty, not least as someone who seems to do very well loaning money to his ‘friends’ while in office. Please no. Not this one.

Carlos Giminez is an earnest Republican with relevant experience. I have never been one of his fans as a Commissioner as he’s no liberal, not even close. But he is not without attributes: He appears to be honest. He was against the corporate socialism that is the overpriced stadium. He was against moving the UDB before the state legislature declared open season on the environment. He appears to be honest and experienced. In a race like this one, that’s not so bad.

I’ve never voted for him before, but I think it is Giminez this time.

District 7

There are two candidates — the third one got blocked by the Clerk’s office, in a move that seems somewhat dubious to me, but I haven’t researched it.

Assuming the election goes forward, we have a choice between former Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez and a second, different, Julio Robaina who is a former mayor of South Miami.

Suarez wasn’t our worst Mayor ever, and experience has value. I remember him from when I moved here as a sharp guy when he was in office, although he hasn’t seemed as sharp in this race. There is a strong whiff of scandal attached to his name — absentee ballot fraud — although he has a plausible claim of deniability on that one, that it wasn’t done with his knowledge. Even so.

On the issues, though, Suarez has not been impressive in the campaign. On issues like stadium socialism or untrammeled development he’s been squishy or plain wrong.

That drives me to the better Julio Robaina, who has run a better campaign. But reasonable people could differ.

The Ballot Initiatives

Flying under the radar are six ballot initiatives, all bastard children of the Commission’s panic over the Alvarez recall. Torn between their urgent desire to appease angry voters and the equally urgent desire not to reform the things that matter since reform would make things far less cozy for them, we got these six proposals. Polls suggest voters are not impressed. Even so, at least four of these initiatives are clearly worth voting for. Two are tougher calls, although I plan to vote for at least one them also. Question 5 has me torn.

Question 1 would forbid commissioners from holding another job while in office, raise commission salaries from $6,000 (plus about $50,000 in benefits) to $92,097 annually, and establish a 12-year term limit. The Herald says vote no. I say vote YES. Full-time Commissioners paid a living wage would be a good thing. People complain that the term limits should be shorter, but I don’t think our rather dire experience of short term limits in the state legislature suggests that this is a model we want to copy.

Question 2 would prohibit lobbying by elected county officers for two years after returning to private life. Tea Party lover Norman Braman wanted 10 years. I’d be happy with four. Two is better than nothing. Vote Yes.

Question 3 would set up a Charter Review Task Force that, with a super-majority vote, could bypass the County Commission and place proposed charter changes directly to voters during presidential election years. Commissioners would appoint the Task Force members. I don’t think this will do much, and I am not sure I like its anti-democratic tinge. So I’m not sure this one matters, but I will vote for it, I guess.

Question 4 would make the office of the inspector general more independent from elected officials. Again we’re being a bit undemocratic here, but this time with better cause. Auditors and prosecutors need to be independent of the people they may be investigating. Vote Yes.

Question 5 would overturn the “strong mayor” form of government approved by voters in 2007 and return that office’s powers to the commission. I vacillated about the strong mayor ballot change in 2007, on the grounds that yes, the Commission was awful and Alvarez was OK, but who knew what the next Mayor would be like, and what havoc he might cause. The prospect of Julio Robaina as Mayor makes the case for a weak Mayor. Then again, the prospect of the current Commission having more power undermines that case pretty badly. I’m still vacillating on this one.

Question 6: This one is my favorite. It eliminates some of the barriers to citizen petitions and initiatives. Vote Yes. Please vote yes.