A banner year for Big Sugar billionaires ... by gimleteye

What a blessed year if you love Big Sugar. The Obama White House is pinned down by an IRS scandal involving heightened scrutiny of tea party entities -- funded by large corporate interests, mainly -- while Marco Rubio, US Senator and tea party favorite doles out the biggest subsidy / gift in the Farm Bill. It happened in the US Senate just the other day. Big Sugar billionaires were popping the Dom.

The sugar subsidy extracts profits for billionaires and helps poison people, poison the Everglades, and poison democracy.

Then there is the Tallahassee give-away to Big Sugar. The legislative session Big Sugar got what it wanted on several important fronts: all point in the direction of a status quo that imposes minimal penalty on the industry for its pollution of the Everglades. Moreover, while Florida environmentalists were making gut-wrenching compromises in order to avert the worst of what the sugar lobby set in motion, Big Sugar's lawyers were busily probing every available avenue to weaken protections required by federal law.

On this political pool table, every bank shot by environmentalists is against a curved surface. Every bank shot by Big Sugar is guided by magnets straight into the pocket. That's the power of money.

Foreclosures in Miami Dade County. By Geniusofdespair

2011 it looked like foreclosures were going down, we had 16,672 that year. Maybe it was because the banks were having a tough time doing them because it looks like 2012 and 2013 will be at similar levels, reaching near 26,000.  The good news, the levels are much lower than they were in 2008. That year we had 56,656 foreclosures. But in 2007 we had 26,691 foreclosures, why are we still at that level? I would think by now we should be back to under 10,000 foreclosures a year, which is where we were during most years before the boom and bust.  Looks like Florida is still number one in foreclosures.

Some of Miami-Dade County's Unfunded Infrasturcture. By Geniusofdespair

The numbers are from Miami Today:

$1.4 Billion public works and waste management areas (of that $429 million to repair bridges)

8.7 Million of water and sewer need in addition to $12 billion in repair and replacement infrastructure.

Update on the EAR meeting. By Geniusofdespair

Will Rebeca Sosa be Miami Dade County's Next Mayor?

I wrote about the Evaluation and Appraisal Report (EAR) earlier this week.  I was home sick and could not stomach watching a County Commission meeting on TV. I was doing enough up-chucking.

I asked a bunch of people who watched it on TV what they thought.  Most said the hero of the meeting was County Commission Chair Rebeca Sosa.  She showed leadership for not cancelling the meeting due to the funeral of Lincoln Diaz-Balart's son (some Commissioners were absent because of it, like Barreiro). Chair Sosa said that the County Commission's first duty was to the residents of Miami Dade County.

My friends were impressed with the questions Sosa asked and overall had great things to say about Rebeca. Also mentioned favorably was Juan Zapata. Some liked his questions.

The consensus was that the worst one on the County Commission during this meeting was Pepe Diaz.  That doesn't surprise me at all. Forget about that miraculous transformation I was hoping for when he was faced with a brain tumor.  No epiphany for Pepe. He was more concerned with the property owners than with the county as a whole.

The County Commission advanced the Staff recommendations, ignoring the changes recommended by the PAB that I did not like (that added in Lennar's Parkland). Thank you County Commissioners.

Commissioner Dennis Moss,  voted against transmission, afraid that this transmittal will create another "camel's nose under the tent" situation. In other words, that the transmittal will create a lobbyist feeding frenzy while the EAR is in Tallahassee for review. I agree this will probably happen. I would suppose that if anyone had an epiphany after adversity and can see things more clearly, it is Dennis Moss.

Am I surprised by this vote? You bet I am.  What do I attribute it to? I don't know but I am left with two options that I will pose as questions: Is Rebeca Sosa's leadership helping to create a  climate for better voting on global issues, such as growth management, by County Commissioners? Is Sosa helping her colleagues see the bigger picture to sustain the health of the County's natural resources?

One last thing, my condolences go to Lincoln Diaz-Balart's family for their loss.

Miami Dade County Commissioner Javier Souto: another example of voters' failure to hold accountable their elected representatives ... by gimleteye

Eye On Miami attempts to shine light on multi-billion dollar public controversies, like the $1.5 billion settlement agreement opposed by environmentalists, between the county and EPA to comply with the needs of a wastewater system that is failing.

Miami-Dade County Commissioner Javier Souto was the lone "no" vote on the 12-1 approval of the agreement because, he said, Miami-Dade residents can't afford it. Environmentalists have many other reasons for opposing the deal, but Souto is a special case.

Souto is a charter member of the unreformable majority of the county commission, and in expressing the thought, "we suffer from an appetite for caviar and a pocketbook for picadillo", he skipped over the fact that land use policies he voted for his entire career as a public official caused the inequities that are piling up on this generation of taxpayers.

The myth that "growth pays its pay" is one of the fundamental drivers of the unreformable majority and the lobbyists who control their election campaigns.

It is a mystery why voters are blind to the nonsense, turned off by government, yet fail to hold officials like Souto accountable when they have a chance, at the ballot box.

Best news report of the year, Miami New Times: "Thomas Kramer's South Beach Story Ends With $200 Million Court Judgment" by Lera Gavin

You haven't already, read this week's Miami New Times report by Lera Gavin, Pulitzer worthy, documenting the flaming burnout of the man who claimed to have transformed South Beach, Thomas Kramer.

Kramer arrived in Miami with a seeming (his) pot of gold and littered the landscape with coin of the realm. Turns out the people who actually owned the gold wanted it back, obtained several court judgments in their favor. Kramer as a result has been forced to close down his pleasure palace and carnival. The chapter certainly appears to be over.

To have watched, in the 1990's, civic activists struggle to preserve South Beach from political bottom feeders who scraped at Kramer's feet was to learn that the essence of Miami is to steam-roller the public interest. Kramer's excesses struck responsive chords wherever they landed. Everyone on the inside, profits.

Kramer was early, but showed in a way recalling PT Barnum that Miami's unsustainable building boom to come just needed the right mix of combustible ingredients, including Fed Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan who was known for crashing Miami Beach parties in the early 2000's and taking credit for the good times. Today, Kramer's hope for financial rescue is reportedly through the agency of a shady Pakistani plutocrat, Malik Riaz. Talk about a reach: "This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to bring Pakistan back on the map of the leading nations in the world," Kramer said, according to New Times. Well.

A friend from away said knowingly the other day, in respect to booming property values in certain parts of the county, "Miami is on fire." To understand what kind of fire, read the excellent New Times report.

Sweetwater Proposed (Insane) Annexation. By Geniusofdespair

Why does Sweetwater want to annex Thousands of acres of wetlands? There is no reason to annex this. There are no City services required for wetlands. There is a little corner owned by Target Stores. Half of Target's property is within the Urban Development Boundary. Most of the land you see here is OUTSIDE the line. Is the proposed Target Store the only thing that is motivating this annexation of thousands of acres of wetlands all the way out to Krome Avenue?

This application for Annexation will be heard May 28th in Sweetwater. We should all care. This is mostly publicly owned land:

Larger landowners in the proposed annexation area.

Support Kaitlyn Hunt ... by gimleteye

More than 100,000 people have signed the petition to the assistant state attorney in Indian River who is prosecuting an 18 year old girl who had a same-sex relationship with a younger woman. Kaitlyn Hunt's father writes, "Kailtyn’s girlfriend’s parents are pressing charges because they are against the same-sex relationship, even though their daughter has stated that this is a consensual relationship. The two girls began dating while Kaitlyn was 17 but her girlfriend’s parents blamed Kailtyn for their daughter’s homosexuality. They waited until after Kaitlyn turned 18 and went to the police to have charges brought against her."

Sign the petition here.

The Evaluation And Appraisal Report: Rebeca Sosa, Xavier Suarez and Juan Zapata LISTEN UP. By Geniusofdespair

The EAR is on Wed., May 22nd at 9:30 a.m. in the County Commission Chambers. Can the 3 of you: Juan Zapata, Xavier Suarez and Rebeca Sosa rally to support the Everglades Coalition position as outlined in the letter below? I know this is just the transmittal hearing on Wednesday (meaning it goes to the state before it comes back to the Commission for adoption) but it is still important for us to send the right message to the State.

The staff is recommending an adjustment (contraction) of the UEAs in order for them to come into compliance with the policies now in the CDMP. While being inside the UEA still requires a UDB amendment, it makes it one step easier since the CDMP gives preference to land inside the UEA for UDB expansion.

The Commission just needs a simple majority to change the land use map. This is a land use map change. It will be a majority vote.

 I DO NOT WANT THE UEA PAB RECOMMENDED ADDITION - NO WAY! They don't know what they are doing on the PAB.  Just ignore them, they were swooned into a trance by the lobbyist Jeffrey Bercow.

You three Commissioners appear to be the swing vote. Swing our way please!  If you add that property in the blue box (see map below) to the UEA, you will be very sorry it makes the UDB change much easier.  If you think traffic is bad now, just wait--there is a development of regional impact called Parkland that just happens to fit in that blue box..  Your vote for the PAB plan would open a door that will cripple our growth management. I can give you a hundred other reasons not to do it...but I am so tired of this same fight. You have a choice, you can kiss Lennar's ass and do it or you can all do the right thing. I have given up on a lot of the Commissioners (Bell, Diaz, Barreiro, Souto, Jordan and Bovo), I have hope for others (Heyman, Moss, Monestime, Edmonson).  But you three: I worry about on this issue. I hope you come through.

Get that blue box off this map!!!! If the Commission approves this map that the PAB put forth, this UEA would go from SW 66th Street, down to SW 152nd Street and make it easier for developments such as Green City and Parkland to request a recommendation for inclusion into the UDB.

To read the letter easier hit on it and will enlarge.

Thinking about water and conflict ... by gimleteye

Taxpayers view cheap, affordable water as a right. We pay the water utility bill and expect copious clean water to drink, flush and clean. But when taxpayers put on hats as voters, the same who expect the water to run at will generally fail to connect costs to the politicians they elect to office.

Whenever I travel to visit archeological sites, the guides are usually surprised when the first question I ask is, "where did the water come from and how was it disposed?" You can tell a lot about a civilization in the answer to these two questions.

In South Florida, water was never a problem so long as population levels were low, groundwater tables high, and treatment required minimal investment. The water flowing out of the Everglades, as a gift of nature, was as pure and clean as anywhere in the world. Some of my friends, now in their 70's and 80's, grew up with drinking water from dug wells in their backyards.

Today, rainfall is plentiful, but population pressure is so great that the water table can quickly be drawn down, from one season to the next, imposing drought conditions with astonishing speed. Big Agriculture, around Lake Okeechobee, dominates land use usage, obstructing the appropriate sizing of water storage and containment areas -- sharply pinching both environmental restoration of the Everglades and water supply for cities.

Assuring that water quality protects people is increasingly complex and subject to regulatory pressures. For example, Florida's industries and lobbying associations relentlessly obstruct the imposition of tough water quality standards that might protect people and the environment. Gov. Rick Scott and the radical right have succeeded in cutting science and agency resources that might otherwise expose how pollution is infiltrating public health.

Where profit is at stake, the long-term public interest is suppressed. That is case today as the Miami-Dade County Commission deliberate on how to address both existing infrastructure deficits, totaling billions of dollars, and ways to mitigate the effects of climate change and rising seas.

We wage water battles in Florida from the fortifications of a functioning economy. Most voters are immune to the issues and most leaders are unwilling to confront an entrenched status quo.

Two items in the New York Times point to risks in a do-little approach. Yesterday, Tom Friedman in a Times OPED wrote about the role of drought in sparking the civil war in Syria. Water shortages and suffering -- with the Syrian government turning a blind eye -- created the underlying conditions for war. The second article, today, details the extraordinary and predictable loss of the Ogallala aquifer in the American midwest. The harvesting of rain water in aquifers, collected over thousands of years, is finished. The tank is empty.

The relevant comparison with South Florida is how blissfully ignorant local elected officials in Kansas were, on account of pressure by special interests to maintain a status quo. The comparison with Syria requires imagination. Picture the impacts of sea level rise this way: when Miami's water infrastructure fails to meet the demands of businesses and people -- the wealthiest will simply pick up and move.

Whether they sell their investments at a discount or at a loss, they will survive. Those left behind will have to pick up the costs, and since the costs will be too high, scarcity will reign. Civil society will be under assault.

No one thought that wide areas of the American midwest could be de-populated by drought. No one thinks that Miami, with our rising real estate values and cultural optimism, could suffer the same end result. But this eventually ought to penetrate the minds of local county commissioners as they contemplate how to resolve the lawsuit brought by Biscayne Waterkeeper against the repeated and continuous violations of laws meant to protect people and the environment from contaminated water.

We have to make the right investments now, while we are wealthy enough, in anticipation of an uncertain future.

Marco Rubio Photo of the Week. By Geniusofdespair

This photo (left) was in the Miami Herald yesterday.

Miami Herald photo

Eye on Miami Photo

I have been accused of printing unflattering photos of Marco Rubio. I can say, without a doubt, that is totally accurate.  I have a shitload of unflattering photos. But I do think this photo in the Miami Herald is right up there with mine, maybe exceeding it.

Homestead Elections: Who is Running? By Geniusofdespair

Rochenel Marc

Norman Hodge

Dr. Joseph G. Sewell is officially running for mayor.  I believe he is a Baptist pastor.

In Council Seat 4 Norman Hodge and Rochenel Marc have thrown their hats in the ring. Seat 5 and 1 have no official candidates.

It is still early, the election is in November.

Here is who has picked up packets to run:

Favorite Allegations in Miami Herald update on "where in the world is Ana Sol Alliegro" ... by gimleteye

Favorite allegations, verified by two or more sources, in today's Miami Herald report on Ana Sol Alliegro, the "Republican Bad Girl" tied to a criminal investigation involving former Congressman David Rivera. Alliegro now lives in Granada, Nicaragua as first reported by Miami New Times.

1) She denies seeing Rivera -- "Don David" -- in Nicaragua, despite neighbors and even immigration records matching the two crossing borders.

2) She coached her maid, to retract a phone conversation telling a Miami Herald reporter that Don David had been to Grenada repeatedly.

3) That Rivera paid her rent.

4) That the scent of marijuana wafted from her rooms.

5) She smashed an ex-lover's car windows and tried to set fire to his windshield after accusing him of sexually assaulting her.

6) She watches porn with sound turned up so high that it bothers neighbors.

US Senator Marco Rubio, Rivera's former room-mate in the state capitol, must have an opinion about Ana Sol Alliegro. A future OPED in the Herald, to come?

New APP available to Indentify Koch Brothers and Other Unfriendly Products. by Geniusofdespair

App to use to Buycott Koch brother products.  It is called Buycott App.

"In her keynote speech at last year’s annual Netroots Nation gathering, Darcy Burner pitched a seemingly simple idea to the thousands of bloggers and web developers in the audience. The former Microsoft programmer and congressional candidate proposed a smartphone app allowing shoppers to swipe barcodes to check whether conservative billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch were behind a product on the shelves.

Burner figured the average supermarket shopper had no idea that buying Brawny paper towels, Angel Soft toilet paper or Dixie cups meant contributing cash to Koch Industries through its subsidiary Georgia-Pacific."

Biscayne Bay Waterkeeper Testimony on Waste Water Issue Before the County Commission Yesterday

Honorable members of the Board of County Commissioners –

You have before you a bond authorization request that includes a capital plan for sewer and water. The EPA and BBWK have sued the county on the sewer side for massive violations of the federal Clean Water Act (CWA).

The sewer Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) is about $1.5 billion. About half of that is for fixing pipes and pump stations and the under-bay force main from miami beach to Virginia Key. the bbwk has no problem with that and, we encourage even faster fix to these problems, which, by the way, constitute the source of most of the raw sewage overflows in the system (most of the CWA violations)

The other half of the $1.5 billion is to fix the 3 wastewater treatment plants (WWTP). 37% of the $1.5 billion alone or $555 million is for a major rebuild to the WWTP on Virginia Key. BBWK and its experts have studied the 3 WWTPS and the issues of sea level rise and storm surges.

According to our internationally-renowned experts from UM, FAU and FIU, the county’s 3 WWTP are at serious risk of damage and losing operational reliability (violating the cwa) due to the failure of the cip to protect the plants from rising sea levels and storm surge expected – and acknowledged -- in the 4-county compact that you have approved.

Now, after reviewing BBWK's expert reports, Miami Dade Water and Sewer (WASD) says that it will address sea level and storm surge, but not in the consent decree. But, these protective measures are not in the CIP and bond authorization that are before you. So, where is the money going to come from? and, how much? and when?

The WASD's hastily commissioned hazen and sawyer study showed that WASD would need an additional $80m to protect the 3 WWTPs from flooding and storm surge (sea walls and building hardening). First, that $80m is not in the CIP before you. Secondly, our experts who are peer reviewing the Hazen and Sawyer study (done for WASD in 3 weeks at the cost of $17,500), have indicated that study is very flawed and that the protections needed to the 3 WWTPs will be much more costly.

In order to make reasoned decisions, the BOCC must use “apples to apples” comparisons for multi-billion dollar capital improvements.

Apparently, the WASD has now, in response to the BBWK lawsuit, greenlighted the new western WWTP, which, at ~143 million gallons per day of capacity, will likely cost over $2b. Where is that money in the bond authorization? It is not in the sewer CIP that is before you.

If the appropriate, sound science and engineering vulnerability studies are done, it may turn out that the costs of adequately protecting the Virginia Key WWTP from sea level rise and storm surge are so great, that it makes more sense to de-commission that plant and build a bigger and safer WWTP at the western site. Plus, the state requires the county to eliminate ocean outfalls by 2025, thereby significantly lessening the locational value of virginia key for the site of a major WWTP.

BBWK doesn’t know the answer to this question, yet. The BOCC doesn’t know the answer to this, and, neither does wasd, because wasd has refused to do the sound science and engineering vulnerability assessment and alternatives analysis of the 3 wwtps that BBWK and its experts have been strongly recommending for six months.

If the EPA and the WASD sign a zero sea level rise consent decree and you, the BOCC, approve it, the losers are going to be the residents and businesses and visitors of Miami Dade County.

You will be taking the county down the road of a self-fulfilling prophecy – to a future where what mayor gimenez and director renfrow predict comes true – “coastal property abandonment.”

If you have not heard their public statements about the future of “coastal property abandonment”in Miami Dade County, please ask them to provide them to you. there are many such statements that they have made to the press, at public meetings, and even in a recent letter to Mayor Frank Caplan of the Virginia Key, etc.

BWWK is not only advocating, here, to stop the pollution of Biscayne Bay that the county’s crumbling sewer systems are causing, it is advocating for the BOCC to begin implementing a climate ready critical infrastructure for Miami Dade County – starting with the sewers – that will extend the habitability of the county long into the future – in this era of rapidly rising sea levels and increasing storm impacts, as Hurricane Sandy so savagely demonstrated.