Miami is a fast paced community with a rapid fire news cycle. Our blog keeps you current on the most important issues affecting the tax payers of Miami-Dade county. Read, share, comment, and as always let us know what topics you want us to tackle.
RIP: Jeannett Slesnick, former Coral Gables First Lady, commissioner
Former Coral Gables Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick, a class act who was involved in many civic organizations and served as First Lady of the City Beautiful for 10 years, died Thursday evening after a long battle with cancer. She was 75.
Slesnick, wife of former Mayor Don Slesnick (2001-2010), was first diagnosed with lymphoma in 2014 and also fought back breast cancer in 2016, one year after she won election as a commissioner. She did six weeks of radiation and went into remission. Then the lymphoma returned in 2020 and there was more chemo to beat it back. Until it returned again earlier this year, Jeannett said in an email sent to friends in June, warning them that she had little time left.
Freddy Ramirez suicide attempt leaves a real open race for Miami-Dade sheriff
With all due respect and thoughts and prayers to former Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo “Freddy” Ramirez, who shot himself in the head off the side of I-75 last weekend, the 2024 election for county sheriff has just become a real race.
Ramirez, who was still recovering at a Tampa Hospital after a self inflicted gunshot wound administered on the side of the road with his wife in the car, was the clear frontrunner by a long distance before this. Last weekend, while staying at a Tampa hotel for a state sheriff’s association event, there was some kind of domestic dispute. Ramirez was asked to leave after other guests reported he had been brandishing a gun outside.
LED billboards could buy their way to Miami streets via campaign donations
Miami City Commissioners deferred making a decision last week on allowing up to 45 giant LED billboards downtown — and some critics worry the can will be kicked down the road until after the November election. You know, so commissioners don’t have to be held accountable.
Or maybe so they can collect more contributions from billboard companies.
Miami redistricting map is thrown out again, ACLU’s map is in for now
Commissioner Joe Carollo is suddenly living outside his district
Three developers want to cross over the UDB to build more than 3K homes
Did anybody really think that the South Dade Logistics & Technology District was going to be the last attempt to cross the Urban Development Boundary, an invisible line meant to keep urban sprawl from penetrating the Everglades? ¡Claro que no!
Instead, the Miami-Dade County Commission’s fervent dedication to and intentional push to up zone farmland late last year — they went of their way to approve it on the fifth try — opened the proverbial floodgates to these protected lands crucial to our water supply. The value of the properties that were upzoned skyrocketed. And speculators and developers can see the cash cow, um, cash manatee. That’s why three separate applications have been filed with the county in a year’s time, as first reported in The Real Deal by Lidia Dinkova and researcher Adam Farence.
Ethics board: Miami’s ADLP had three ‘ghost’ employees on taxpayers’ dime
One staffer worked on brother’s commission campaign
Once shady political characters are back in business in Miami-Dade elections
Miami loves a comeback story. Today, there are two.
Political observers and civic leaders have alerted Ladra to the resurgence of two shady political operatives who seem to be back in business after somewhat of a sabbatical — forced or not.
Miami-Dade County could raise garbage fees, suspend recycling service
The Miami-Dade Commission talked about garbage this week. Not the usual garbage. Real garbage.
Mayor Daniella Levine Cava has suggested a $36 annual garbage fee increase — or $3 a month — as part of her 2023-2024 $11.6 billion budget. To keep the current $509 annual fee would mean a cut in services, she said. But county commissioners, who approved her tiny. fake tax cut — a millage decrease that doesn’t actually cut anyone’s taxes — balked and deferred making any decision until Sept. 6.
Miami-Dade moves to negotiate lease for one new airport hotel, not two
Second place bidder almost gets ‘consolation prize’
Proposed Miami-Dade budget includes fake ‘tax break’ and real fee increases
Commissioners likely to discuss mayor’s gas tax gaffe
Late Monday, with less than 24 hours for county commissioners to review it, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava released her proposed $11 billion 2023-2024 budget — the largest ever, with a 20% increase in capital improvement spending, due much to federal dollars. She boasts about a 1% tax cut and what the mayor calls a “gas tax holiday” — which only came after her office forgot to renew the 6-cent gas tax.
