After Miami-Dade Commissioner Esteban Bovo became the board’s chairman in December, he created the Chairman’s Policy Council, a new sort of super committee to take up the most important issues the county faces in the next two to four years — including the renovation of the historic downtown civil courthouse, which was once a $400-million tax grab emergency many moons ago. 

According to the county website, the Chairman’s Council will be responsible for:

• Identifying innovative transportation funding solutions
• Developing a courthouse capital improvement plan
• Identifying critical capital needs, and a corresponding funding plan for the county’s jail system to ensure and promote the humane treatment of inmates while maximizing the safety of county correctional officers
• Developing a coherent and proactive sea level rise response plan
• And preparing a workable county response to gun-related youth affecting our community

That’s a lot of responsibility, ain’t it? It hits all the main community issues and some of the more expensive ones.

And it’s all in the hands of the seven commissioners who voted for Bovo as chairman: Jean Monestime, Audrey Edmonson, Bruno Barreiro, Sally Heyman, Rebeca Sosa, Dennis Moss and Javier Souto. They were rewarded with a  juciy spot on this new and important board while Commissioner Xavier Suarez and those who voted for him were left out.

Read related story: Carlos Gimenez, er, Stevie Bovo wins commission chair

Thursday’s meeting has the eight-member board looking at three $11-million contracts for engineering services for the Department of Transportation and Public Works (including one that has the mayor’s BFF listed as a subcontractor, again). The three contracts look like they are for the same thing — engineering work on a variety of projects, including the study of using driverless vehicles (though we need to get cars off the road, not drivers) — and also include side deals for 41 subcontractors.

But they will also be looking at and discussing different possible transportation funding sources, including:

• Tax increment financing
• Local option gas tax
• Auto tag renewal fees (which is what Suarez has been pushing for but he’s not on the committee)
• Fees on parking violations
• Whatever is left in the People’s Transportation Plan surtax after Mayor Carlos Gimenez takes out millions for operations and maintenance
• Tourist bed taxes
• Monies from the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority
• Public-private transit-oriented development opportunities

Bovo also wants to talk about “deficiencies” in Transportation and Public Works and an update on the construction repairs or renovation to the civil courthouse. 

There’s also a $1.5 million contract to consider for Perez & Perez Architects Planners for an update to the 2008 master plan for the court system and the county jails. That money will come from the Building Better Communities general obligation fund.

The Policy Council — or the Bovo Buddies Bunch, because you can call them that — meets at 9:30 a.m. in commission chambers at County Hall, 111 NW First St.

It was an odd thing to watch as speaker after speaker at Tuesday’s Miami-Dade Commission meeting be silenced — their mics actually cut off — and, in some cases escorted out of the chambers. Disturbingly odd. Chillingly odd.

Members of the community had gone to speak on Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s directive Jan. 26 to the corrections department, telling them to start holding illegal immigrants who have federal detainer requests even after they post bond or are released at arraignment. Many people were offended and vowed to fight back. Hundreds have protested twice at County Hall — but none of the county electeds were there to hear them.

Tuesday was their first chance to speak to our elected leaders about something that they felt was of vital importance.

Until Bovo put a kibosh on that.

Read related story: Looming face off at County Hall over sanctuary switch

The chairman made an announcement at the beginning of the meeting: Public comments would be limited only to those items on the agenda. He closed the public comments saying that it was “important to get the business before us done and not turn this into a circus.”

The “circus” he said, will be on Feb. 17.

“We set an entire day aside for them to come and speack on the detention issue or against Trump or whatever they want,” Bovo later told Ladra, adding that it was the first time in his memory they set aside a special meeting for anything that was not a budget matter.

“It’s their right to be heard and by giving them a special meeting, we are giving them that,” said the chairman, who has already publicly supported the mayor’s decision.

“I know this item has people all fired up. This is a passionate, controversial item. I feel the passion. And I want to give them a forum,” Bovo said, adding that the separate meeting next Friday complies with the county’s obligation to provide a “reasonable opportunity to be heard.”

Later, on NBC6, Gimenez sort of shrugged his shoulders and said “They can say whatever they want on the 17th.” He did not sound like he would listen. He sounds like a man with a mind made up.

Read related story: Protester have demands for Carlos Gimenez on sanctuary

More than a dozen people wearing white flowers pinned to their clothing spoke Tuesday against the measure anyway… sort of (only one Miami Trump volunteer spoke in favor). They couched their message in words dripping with double meaning to support two other measures on the agenda that (1) provide for citations rather than arrests of juveniles on first-time misdemeanors and (2) prohibit the suspension of a driver’s license for failure to pay a fine for some low-income drivers. Either one could be seen as a move to help protect illegal immgrants and undocumented youth from the consequences of the mayor’s new groove. The speakers spoke slowly, choosing words carefully in many instances, to get their subliminal message across.

Brian Hunker told them it was his first commission meeting. “I’ve never been politically active in my life so I guess in some ways just being here is sort of evidence that I’ve become motivated to participate and I hope you all take notice,” Hunker said, speaking in favor of the resolution to not arrest juveniles.

“It shows a wise exercise and foresight on behalf of the commission to prevent the systemic criminalization and incarcelation of well-meaning members of our community.”

Wink, wink.

“People’s lives should not be ruined if they’ve done nothing wrong. We don’t want to ruin people’s lives, whether its putting them in jail or sending them some place else,” said a gringo named Glen (didn’t catch his last name), who was careful not to use the taboo terms that had gotten people tossed already as he urged commissioners to extend that welfare to “a group of folks who are prevalent in Miami-Dade who I cannot mention by name.”

Because anyone who uttered the word “immigrant” was cut-off and, some, escorted out of chambers when they refused to stop talking even after the mic was turned off. Curiously, the word “undocumented” — which isn’t the same thing — was said at least twice without a reaction from Bovo.

Read related story: Carlos Gimenez will be grilled on sanctuary cities decision

“Arresting our youth is harmful to our community and it has very serious consequences, especially for undocumented youth and its something we cannot divorce from the issue,” said Maria Angelica Rodriguez, who was not interrupted by the chairman. “Please support our youth, of which undocumented youth are also affected.”

Gaby Garcia Vera, an LGBT activist, was unfazed when he asked Gimenez not to leave because any issue having to do with law enforcement would affect illegal immigrants. “I will not sit in fear of this commission to say the word immigrant,” he said before he was cut off and led out as the audience cheered and some recorded it on their cell phones.

“We need to talk about community relations… This is not just about numbers,”

There’s more. Please press this “continue reading” button to “turn the page.”

Reports would include data on no-bid contracts

Three days after he was sworn in earlier this month, new Miami-Dade Commission Chairman Esteban Bovo sent a couple of memos to all the commissioners and several staffers telling them this is his show now and we’re doing things a little differently.

Not because he flagrantly doled out committee chairs to his pals. Everybody new chairman does that. Ah, tradition.

No, Bovo set the tone with what seem like some relevant changes that would better inform the commission and the public before decisions are made, increase transparency on no-bid contracts and waivers and reform the county auditor’s office — which is so clueless, it failed to catch and report the garage full of parked, unused hybrid county vehicles, the Frost Museum emergency, the special taxing district fiasco and the scam at the airport involving the light fixtures.

Read related story: Miami-Dade special taxing districts = free-for-all shell game?

In fact, no one can remember a single audit in more than a decade that has exposed any major errors (and there have been many) or led to any change in policy. Because they get all their information from the administatrion, the Office of Commission Auditor  just regurgitates whatever Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and his top cronies say. The auditor’s reports mirror those from the Gimenez administration. This from a department that costs $2.5 million in taxpayer funds.

Bovo talked about making changes when he was sworn in Jan. 9, about wanting the auditor to have more teeth and provide the commission with more tools to do the job. Three days later, he sent a memo that indicates his desire to expand the office of the auditor’s analytical role and have them prepare legislative reports with historical data that would be due by 5 p.m. the day before any committee meeting — beginning next month.

These reports would include:

• An overview of legislative items assigned to each committee
• A detailed analysis of items that involved the expenditure of county funds or that have been identified by the mayor’s office as having a fiscal impact
• A detailed analysis of proposed county contract awards and requests to reject all bids
• A detailed analysis of mayoral requests for bid waivers and legacy contracts (which is another way to say bid waiver)
• A legislative history and relevant contextual information pertinent to legislative items appearing on a committee agenda
• Information requested by the committee

Pay particular attention to the third and fourth bullet. Because while Bovo and Gimenez are pals and allies, this could signal that Bovo is not necessarily going to rubberstamp all the mayor’s gifts to those on his friends and family plan. Asking for a detailed analysis, or list, of bid waivers and legacy (or no-bid) contracts and requests to reject all bids may also send a message to the mayor: Stop doing that.

Bovo should add “emergency purchase orders” to the list, like the $1 million “emergency purchase agreement” with Crystal Mover Services on Tuesday’s agenda, to extend their services, operating and maintaining the people mover at MIA’s north terminal, for 60 days.

In other words Bovo’s changes come late and Ladra, for one, can’t wait to see the first of these reports.

Read related story: New Miami-Dade committee structure — winners and losers

Not everyone is convinced, though. Former Commissioner Juan Zapata, who long railed against the lack of information from the auditor’s office, tweeted the day after Bovo’s swearing-in, to say that the idea was lofty.

“Moving audit staff to committees wont work. Info & systems controlled by admin. They love to play games. #lackoftransparency,” he tweeted on Jan. 10. When Ladra pressed for more details, Zap sent a text.

“Auditor’s office is not staffed to be able to deal with that task and the commission has no independent source of info,” he wrote. “All sources controlled by the administation,” he wrote. “I had legislation that would have eliminated the requirement that commission auditor be a CPA. It needs to be an analyst and the office should be about government performance, not chasing info that never gets acted upon.”

Others warned that the current employees in the office don’t have the skill set for legislative analysis. Basically they just add and subtract.

Bovo did not return calls and text messages. But his legislative aide, Alex Annunziato, whose own profile is considerably elevated now (and who should be chief of staff), told Ladra that all but two of the 20 positions in the auditor’s office are for accountants. But that could change. Vacancies could be filled by people with more of a legislative background.

“It ought to resemble more an auditor at the state level… An independent, investigative function,” Annunziato said.  “They should provide historical analysis and data so the commission doesn’t have to solely rely on the administration’s information.”

An auditor that is truly independent. Imagine that.

Another less dramatic change Bovo is making is to the commission staff briefings.

Aides used to meet on Fridays before a commission meeting with the preliminary agenda and go over their respective boss’ items one by one, but offered very little backup material. Basically they read the title of each item tomando cafe y hechandose fresco. Bovo moved the meetings to 1:30 p.m. Monday or the day before the commission meeting, which is when the agenda closes and there are no more changes. He will also require commission aides and/or departmental personnel to really work for the item if there is a cost associated with it.

“You have to come down and you have to be able to justify the expense,” Annunziato said.

“We want to sit down and rehearse the meeting, see what items we can dispense with first that will get as many people from the public, who have taken time out of their day to speak, back to work as soon as possible,” Annunziato told Ladra Friday.

Items that are more controversial or complex will be taken earlier, “when people are still fresh,” Annunziato added. “We’re going to have a script.”

That’s going to be welome news to the activists who are used to being made wait hours and hours, right Michael Rosenberg?

Gathering photos of our electeds from social media sites to share with you, dear readers, is time consuming and laborious and not all that personally fulfilling, which is why Ladra stopped doing it months ago.

But this week marks a special ocassion. We had a few South Florida politicos in D.C. for the inauguration festivities surrounding our new President Donald Trump. It’s a historic moment. And these electeds — especially State Rep. Jose Felix “Selfie King” Diaz — made it easy for me. Diaz is so proficient on twitter one has to wonder where he finds the time to legislate.

So here are some of my favorite photos from this week’s mayhem in the capitol. The first five are courtesy of the Selfie King himself, who looks like he had a ball. Or two. Or three. And an actual run-in with the POTUS, who Diaz said was the first person to ever fire him. Did he yell “You’re fired!”? We need more of this story, State rep.

And with our new Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.

And with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

And with Congressman Matt Gaetz.

And with State Rep. Carlos Trujillo, who is being considered for an ambassadorship.

That was at the Florida Ball, which was also attended by Miami-Dade Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz, who unfortunately did not post photos, and Miami-Dade Commmission Chairman Esteban Bovo and State Sen. Rene Garcia, who did.

Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen may not have supported Trump’s campaign at first, but she fell in line and did not boycott the inauguration. I don’t know about Carlos Curbelo because he has me blocked on social media. But IRL tweeted several pictures, including this one “enjoying bipartisan representation” with Congressman Ted Deutch (D-Boca Raton/Margate)

Doral Councilwoman Ana Maria Rodriguez enjoyed the nice D.C. weather with Republican superwoman Marili Cancio. Love that tree behind them.

Former Doral Councilwoman Bettina Rodriguez-Aguilera posted several photos of herself and her friends on Facebook. Some during the day getting to and at the actual inauguration. And then later at a reception and at the Freedom Ball. Nice gown, chica!

Miami-Dade Commission Chairman Esteban Bovo has named his new committee members, chairs and vice chairs and there are definitely signs that some of his colleagues are buds and some are, well, not.

It’s natural to give chairmanships to those commissioners who voted for you as chairman of the board. That’s a longtime tradition and no surprise here. These are rewards, plain and simple. If you think, gentle reader, that our electeds want to put people in committees that make sense because of their experience or expertise, you would only be half right. Because appointments are also opportunities to help allies and hand out payback to those who aren’t. And this is all real insider baseball, but it can help us understand how things play out in the next two years. 

And it is obvious that Vice Chair Audrey Edmonson is the big winner while newly re-elected Commissioner Joe Martinez is the big loser.

Edmonson is sitting pretty, which lends more strength to the widespread belief that she struck a deal with Bovo and switched her original vote for chairman from Commissioner Xavier Suarez and steered others to do the same. Edmonson is the only commissioner who got two committees instead of three — she gets a little break — and they are two of the good ones. She is chair of the housing and social services, most likely she wanted that because of the Liberty Square Rising project — and vice chair of transportation and public works, which is probably the most imporant committee (read: most coveted) in the next two years. She also chairs her own Building Safer Neighborhoods committee and is vice chair of Bovo’s Policy Council, that means that there is not a single committee that she sits on that she is not chairing or vice chair.

Read related story: Tight race for commission chair — Xavier Suarez vs Stevie Bovo

She’s also got the most and some of the juicier appointments to various boards and councils, like the International Trade Consortium, which was taken away from Jose “Pepe” Diaz, who voted for X in the chair vote (loser). Edmonson also got appointed to the Public Health Trust Nominating Council and the Jackson Health Systesm GOB Advisory Board, which will oversee spending of the $830 million general obligation bond funds that were approved by 65% of the voters in 2013. She was also appointed to the Youth Crime Task Force with Commissioner Barbara Jordan, who also voted for X and was not appointed to any other board or council (loser).

But at least she got one. And Jordan was also named vice chair of the public safety and health committee. And Diaz gets to be vice chair of infrastructure and utilities as well as the appointment to the Military Affairs Board, which is a nice consolation prize for him in exchange for the trade consortium.

Joe Martinez is the big loser because he is the only commissioner who didn’t get named either chair or vice chair of any committee and he got snubbed out of any boards and councils. It’s not like there weren’t enough spots to go around. Edmonson and Commissioners Rebeca Sosa and Javier Souto — both of whom also supported Bovo — have both a chair and vice chair position (winners). Sosa will chair the economic development and tourism committee and serve as vice chair of the government operations. And Souto chairs his beloved Parks and Cultural Affairs committee — arguably the least important of them — and is vice chair of the economic development and tourism committee with Sosa. Say what? Well, the chairman, whose father served in Brigade 2506 with Souto, likes him. And several of the commissioners who voted for Bovo as chair have multiple board appointments.

If Edmonson is the queen of the new court, Martinez is the jester. To add insult to injury, he also gets what everyone considers the “punishment” chair in the seatig arrangement at the county clerk end of the dais, furthest from the door and the coveted county attorney side.

So, it’s more than just about his vote for Suarez. This is probably about Martinez talking smack since he’s come back.

Ladra loves it. Comeback Joe is schooling the other commissioners, asking bothersome questions, making procurement officers squirm. But that means he’s ruffling feathers at County Hall and making some people unhappy. And he must pay Piper Bovo.

Read related story: Carlos Gimenez, er, Stevie Bovo wins commission chair

Also, the chairman admitted that he consulted with Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez — who also worked behind the scenes to help Bovo become chairman — before making his appointments and its no secret, despite Martinez claiming a buried hatchet, that the mayor is still peeved at Joe for having the audacity to run against him in 2012. The nerve!

Ladra doesn’t think the chairman considers Martinez a threat to his own rumored interest in the open mayor’s seat in 2020. But we suspect that’s why X was also put in a box. It’s no secret that Suarez is also seriously considering a run for mayor. And there was no other reason for Bovo to rub his victory in Suarez’s face by giving the Children’s Trust appointment to Commissioner Sally Heyman (winner) after X told him it’s all he wanted.  But Suarez did get appointed to housing and social services committee that has organizational jurisdiction over the Children’s Trust. He also got on the government operations, which oversees budget and finance, and infrastructure and utilities committees.

“Sounds like I get to do some work on the budget,” Suarez told Ladra. “I’m happy with all of them.

“Not being on transportation could be seen as negative but I don’t take it like that. I’m not able to move a transportation agenda without outside influences,” Suarez said, adding that he was talking to the CITT  about reclaiming People’s Transportation Plan funds and talking to legislators about tag renewal fee monies.

His son, Miami City Commissioner Francis Suarez, is vice chair of the Metropolitan Planning Organization and Suarez has also been trying to get more MDX dollars for mass transit rather than highways.

“I don’t need to be on the committee to move things forward,” he said.

Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava, who also supported Suarez, got put on the Parks and Cultural committee and the Public Safety and Health committees and is vice chair of the Housing and Social Services committee. She did get one appointment to the Public Health Trust Compensation and Evaluation Committee, whatever that is. Obscure. Suarez got it appointed to just that also (losers).

Other winners include Bruno Barreiro, who gets to chair the transportation committee and is the commission appointment to the Beacon Council, former Chairman Jean Monestime, who gets chair of the infrastructure and utilities committee and is the county’s representative at the Miami-Dade League of Cities and Dennis Moss, who got chair of government operations and appointed to the Miami-Dade Zoological Park and Gardens Oversight Board and Neat Streets Miami.

Expect to hear about transit, jobs and public safety

To the victor go the spoils, don’t they? To the victor, also goes the spin.

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez will do what he does best at this year’s State of the County address Wednesday: Pat his own back.

Sure, he’ll provide shout-outs to his apologists and allies — especially Chairman Esteban Bovo, who many say he is grooming as his chosen replacement for 2020 — and largely ignore or smugly chide his critics and naysayers. He’ll thank former Chairman Jean Monestime for his service the last two years. And he might have a person (read: prop) or two in the audience to serve as an example of something great he’s done. Probably a young person who is working thanks to the great efforts the mayor has made.

But be sure that Gimenez will be the star of the show. It will sound a lot like the last address, which sounded the same as the last and so on, and so on. He’s in love with himself.

Read related story: Carlos Gimenez gets a ‘C’ on State of the County speech

He will take credit for the smooth election in Miami-Dade as well as the economic turnaround and the successes at Miami International Airport and the seaport, which is woefully under achieving in cargo sales compared to even Port Everglades (that won’t be in the speech, though) because it is not open 24 hours a day. He will take credit for the new animal shelter, even though it was a mandate from the people and approved in a bond referendum more than a decade ago. He will talk about all the great things he’s done — Gimenez never misses a chance to repeat how he delivered the biggest tax break ever — and all the great things he’s going do do in the next four years. After all, he is sure to remind us, these are his last.

After reviewing past addresses, the things he said after his re-election and the speech he gave at Bovo’s swearing in earlier this month — and talking to several sources inside County Hall and insiders outside County Hall — Ladra has a pretty good guess of at least some of the issues or projects that are most likely to be in Wednesday’s speech. And it’s no surprise that it is the three main issues of the mayoral campaign which he also told reporters would be his priorities after he beat School Board Member Raquel Regalado in November: transit, economic development and public safety in the light of the gun violence plaguing some of our neigborhoods.

Transit will be center stage. Many longtime county observers and insiders say Gimenez will use this speech to lay out his transportation plans. That will likely take up a good part of the first half of his monologue. You know, after he acknowledges his family and talks about leaving the county better for his grandchildren blah blah blah. He hinted in November toward a major announcement soon. Maybe this is soon enough. He will talk about finally making some headway in finishing the six famous corridors that closely match what was promised to voters — except they won’t all be rail (some people will have to compromise for rapid busways). He won’t talk about how he has misspent some of the People’s Transportation Tax dollars so that he could give us that tax break he loves to remind us about, but he may announce which of the six corridors goes first. Spoiler alert: It’s either the South Dade corridor to Homestead or the 27th Avenue corridor to Miami Gardens. He won’t tell people that he increased the transit payroll by $1 million in 2015 with five other six-figure salaries for people to babysit new director Alice Bravo.

He may also talk about his recent trip to Las Vegas, where he attended the AT&T Smart Cities conference and how he himself was the one who made Miami one of the cities tapped for their initiative and get one of the first Smart Cities operation centers, which are supposed to help governments see community conditions — traffic flow, lighting and public safety operartions — in real time and present solutions immediately. Let’s hope he explains what that means exactly and let’s hope it’s not just another layer of beaurocracy that sounds good because it has the word smart in it. Let’s also hope he doesn’t make a lame joke about what happens in Vegas coming to Miami.

Wait a minute. Didn’t the Denver trip last year promise to bring us some transit solutions?

Economic development and jobs will also be highlighted. He will talk about the number of jobs he created, again without going into the details about the type of jobs (low paying and temporary) that most are. He may even say “a job is a job” again, which is easy to say when you are drawing from three pensions and you make $150,000 a year. But now he will talk more about diversification of the economy (almost like he learned from Regalado during the campaign). He will talk about the upcoming projects that are going to bring new jobs, like the megamall planned for Northwest Dade just north of Hialeah — which is coming before the commission next week — and the Miami Wilds theme park planned for the property next to the zoo, which has been broken up into two phases to make it more palatable and easy to get each piece through despite the objections of environmentalists (more on that later). He will talk about smaller projects brought through incentives and public private partnerships and, perhaps, moving forward with the privatization of Vizcaya (more on that later), though he won’t call it that. He will call it a pathway to preservation, or some such nonsense. No, he hasn’t given up on that plan. He just put it on the shelf until after the election. And he will talk about expanding his own legacy program, Employ Miami-Dade, which I suspect is just a feel-good program with a subsidy replacement check instead of a real job and someone ought to investigate how many of those people are still employed afterwards.

He may also talk about soccer. He sorta has to. Everybody wants to know what is going on with that.

Read related story: Miami-Dade Police cuts by Carlos Gimenez cause concern

And even though he doesn’t want to, Gimenez will have to talk about the gun violence that has claimed the lives of so many children and young people all over the county, from Miami Gardens to Homestead. The speech was probably edited this week to include a mention of the people injured when shots were fired at the Martin Luther King Jr. Festival Monday. But Ladra hopes he talks about more than just us policing ourselves. And I hope he doesn’t talk about expanding his living room cops again. Taking officers off the street and putting them into the homes of at-risk kids — his brilliant idea last year — is not just a band-aid, it’s a cheap generic band-aid from the dollar store that doesn’t really stick and is falling off five minutes after you put it on. Unless Gimenez restores some of the specialized units he dismantled in 2014 — because he would rather make cuts than fill vacancies — hoods with guns will play across our county. It was reported yesterday that the shooting was perpetrated by rival gangs. And it is time Gimenez wake up to the fact that gang activity has increased since he dismantled the very specialized unit that investigated them and stopped these shootings before they happened.

But that will be one of the many things he doesn’t say.

Like the fact that after the speech Wednesday, the mayor and his lobbyist son are flying to D.C. for the inauguration of president-elect Donald Trump, who he tried so desperately to distance himself from during the election.

Is it too much to hope that Regalado — or someone — will have a response to his address again this year?