Miami-Dade Commissioners will consider on Tuesday approving an $7.8-million contract that was already awarded, and for which work has already started, to you guessed it, Magnum Construction Management — which is the same post-bridge collapse Munilla Construction company under a different name — to build a new county fire station in Sweetwater.
Mayor Daniella Levine Cava (or, rather, someone in her office) awarded the contract for construction of Dolphin Fire Station No. 68 — a brand new, 13,000-square-foot, single story, three-bay station on 1.6 acres of land at 11091 NW 17th St. — in September. That’s five months ago.
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The Miami-Dade Commission voted 10-1 Wednesday to approve the annexation of two square miles into the city of Sweetwater, practically doubling the municipal’s geographic footprint and adding millions to its tax rolls with the mostly commercial area just to the west.
And the timing couldn’t be better: Commission Chairman Jose “Pepe” Diaz, who is termed out after this year, is widely rumored to be eyeing a return to the mayoral seat in Sweetwater, which is going to have a fatter budget now.
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Damn the manatees!
That’s basically what the Miami-Dade Commission said on Wednesday when it approved the Miami International Boat Show’s application to increase the number of boat slips by about a third to almost 1,000 and have “sea trials” — kind of like test drives for boats — in sensitive manatee nesting and feeding areas during their five-day event in downtown this January.
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It happens every year. Elected officials glom onto the efforts of local organizations and food banks to give turkeys and other Thanksgiving trimmings to Miami-Dade residents.
This has always seemed like a desperate and, frankly, pathetic publicity stunt to garner favor with voters and even local media.
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Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava is one her way home, arriving Thursday evening — after a brief layover at JFK Airport in Queens — from a weeklong jaunt to Italy. It is her first international trade mission as mayor.
La Alcaldesa left last Thursday with Chairman Jose “Pepe” Diaz to promote bilateral trade, economic development, culture and tourism. Also on the trip: PortMiami Director Juan Kuryla, Maria Dreyfus-Ulvert, interim president of the International Trade Consortium, and Veronica Pizzorni Rossi, the mayor’s operations manager (and maybe translator?).
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Is a lobbyist still a lobbyist if nobody hears a sound?
Former Miami-Dade Transit Director Alice Bravo attended a meeting with other lobbyists last month with Miami-Dade Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz about a piece of a $50 million contract for design and engineering services at Miami International Airport. Bravo, who resigned from her $250,000 earlier this year, can’t lobby anyone at the county for two years after she her exit. And Diaz would have us believe that she was not there to influence him.
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