It is nothing more than political retaliation.
The Miami-Dade County Attorney’s office is trying to remove an outspoken, critical member of the Citizens Independent Transportation Trust who has been a thorn in the mayor’s side, saying that he can’t be on the oversight committee because he is involved in legal action against the county.
Attorney Paul Schwiep was advised via email — actually a copy of an email to CITT Director Javier Betancourt — that he had “relinquished” his seat on the board when he filed a legal action Oct. 26 against the county on behalf of the Friends of the Everglades, seeking to stop construction of the Kendall Parkway extension to the 836 expressway.
Oh no he didn’t, Schwiep shot back.
In a seven-page email with exhibits and legal precedent examples the attorney tells the county attorney, in no uncertain terms, that he has absolutely not relinquished nada and that he will be at the scheduled CITT meeting Thursday, as planned.
Read related: Carlos Gimenez taps commissioner to block return of half penny funds?
“The current county administration did not appoint me to the CITT and is not permitted to remove Trustees with whom they may disagree on particular issues, whether on ending unification or the extension of SR 836,” Schwiep, an appointee of Commissioner Daniela Levine Cava, writes in his response.
Schwiep has also been one of the leading voices on the call to end unification of half-penny surtax funds — which were supposed to be for the extension of metrorail — with operation and maintenance dollars. Something the current administration continues to do. Mayor Carlos Gimenez has even found a way to use the county attorney’s office to thwart a CITT directive that these funds stop being used this way.
And, to boot, Shwiep also sued MDX months ago to get documents related to the PR for the Kendall Parkway, some of which was done by the mayor’s daughter in law, a perk now that he is chairman of the board.
So, as one might imagine, Gimenez doesn’t love Schwiep.
“The mayor is not happy with me because I represent people opposed to the 836 extension and because I am on the transportation trust saying we have to end comingling,” Schwiep said. “He’s told me himself.”
Does he think Gimenez ordered Assistant County Attorney Annery Pulgar Alfonso to get Schwiep off the board? “That would be pure speculation,” he told Ladra.
But what else could it be? How likely is it that this was on Alfonso’s radar all by itself? After all, Schwiep represented another group that sued the county in 2013 — and nobody objected then.
No, more likely this is a move by Gimenez to silence a critic who is in an actual position to derail the mayor’s plans to keep using PTP funds forever to shore up his budget.
Read related: MDX spent $400K on PR, including $60K for mayor’s daughter-in-law
Not that the county has any legal standing, he said, adding that the county code section 2-11.38 cited by Alfonso to make him “relinquish” the seat does not apply. “They’re really out on a limb on this,” Schwiep said.
First off, the legal action is not a lawsuit, per se, which is what the county code speaks to. What Schwiep filed is an “administrative petition” to seek the review of an agency decision, which doesn’t go to court but rather the state’s Division of Administrative Hearings and before an administrative law judge. Sounds like a lawsuit to Ladra, but the legal nuances may have Schwiep technically in the clear.
No matter, though. Because, secondly, this particular part of the county code does not apply to the CITT, which is not a board created by the county commission but rather a trust created by voters who approved the People’s Transportation Plan in 2002. It’s an independent watchdog group separate from the government and as such is not subject to the same government rules.
Schwiep also argues that, thirdly, the county code section only applies to board members who participate as a party to a lawsuit, not who serve as counsel — like he did in 2013 for the Biscayne Bay Waterkeeper in an action against the county.
“No one at that time suggested that my service as counsel for the plaintiffs triggered section 2-11.38,” Schwiep wrote. “This demonstrates that your current opinion is no more than retribution for my work to end comingling of surtax funds and in opposition to the extension of SR 836.”
In addition, Schwiep went to the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust and got an opinion from them that he could serve as counsel on the administrative petition because the relief sought by the third parties are not associated with the CITT functions.
Schwiep ends by saying that he will be at the next CITT meeting Thursday afternoon. On the agenda are two $1.1 million contracts for environmental clean-up for the departments of transportation and public works and other departments using the half penny surtax funds.
And the county is requesting surtax funds for this, of course.

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When Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and Commissioner Audrey Edmonson made themselves members of the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority early last year — convincing colleagues to appoint them rather than citizens, as they had traditionally done — there was talk about making MDX toll funds available to build rail for the SMART plan.
That was the whole idea, wasn’t it? That’s what Gimenez campaigned on in 2016.
Instead, all he’s done is get his daughter-in-law work and promote the construction of 14 new miles of highway.
That’s not what we were expecting.
Read related: MDX spent $400K on PR, including $60K for mayor’s daughter-in-law
“Miami-Dade mayor takes a seat on MDX toll board and eyes money for rail projects,” read the Feb. 7, 2017 headline in the Miami Herald.
“County preparing to spend $3.6B on rapid transit,” reads another headline, Feb. 16, 2017, in The Next Miami. “Mayor Carlos Gimenez and another county commissioner recently appointed themselves to the MDX board with the intention of taking MDX funds for rail,” the story said.
The mayor himself, at his first MDX meeting, said they agency had to be about more than highways.
“What the commission did in putting myself in and the vice chair is a clear indication that we consider MDX to be part of the solution and that we need to work together because its about mobility, its about getting around” Gimenez told the board at his introduction meeting.
“MDX is about maybe expressways. Maybe it should be more than that,” he said. “How we get around in the very near future is going to be quite different than how we get around today.”
What happened to all the promises?
Read related: Kendall Parkway to nowhere is an intentional slippery slope for UDB
By July of last year, after he was made chairman of the board at MDX, Gimenez was already saying rail wasn’t going to happen. He called it old fashioned. “So 19th century,” he told the Miami Herald’s editorial board. And, instead, he proposes the modern, 21st century solution: More buses.
Now his role on MDX is to promote the Kendall Parkway, a highway to nowhere over endangered wetlands and across the Urban Boundary Development line that everybody in the world knows will just become gridlocked as soon as it opens and that most Miami-Dade residents — and all environmentalists — don’t want.
Gimenez has become the lead advocate for the proposed $1 billion extension of the 836 expressway. Last month, before the county commission voted to approve the highway to nowhere, he actually said that 5,000 postcards received from residents in favor of the Parkway — which is perfectly named because it will become a parking lot — proved support for the project.
What he didn’t say was that there were really 150,000 cards sent out by MDX before the first vote in June — at a cost of $125,000 (which seems inflated) — and that they did not have an option to mark if you were against the new 14 miles of highway. Ladra can’t help but wonder if Gimenez, who was made chairman of the MDX board this past summer, approved that.
Read related: No-brainer Miami-Dade Commission approves Kendall Parkway despite so much
He also forgot to mention that MDX spent at least $400,000 on PR for the Kendall Parkway vote, including $60,000 that went to the company the mayor’s daughter-in-law works for.
On Monday, the Herald’s Doug Hanks wrote that two environmental groups filed separate lawsuits to block the construction of the Kendall Parkway, saying that the public was misled about the details and that what the commission approved was different than what was advertised.
Today, Tuesday, Gimenez will hold court at MDX, 3790 NW 21st St., where the board meets at 4 p.m. On the agenda: an update on the Kendall Parkway and a $2.6 million contract for “Construction Engineering and Inspection (CE&I) Services” on a number of projects, including the addition of a continuous westbound lane and interchange improvements at 57th and 17th avenues, the addition of a continuous eastbound lane from west of the LeJeune exit to 27th Avenue with interchange improvements, and replacing some tolling location points.
Not on the agenda: Rail.
 

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Miami-Dade Commissioner Chairman Esteban “Stevie” Bovo may not be so bobo after all.
Bovo acted quickly after he recognized the same mantra coming up in the pro Kendall Parkway speakers on Thursday, after questions were raised about paying for testimony, and moved to stop it before others noticed.
After the first few people stood up and provided what seemed like a scripted speech — name, address, in so-and-so’s district and I support this — he suddenly offered them the option to wave in support.
Just wave in support? Shouldn’t they have to provide testimony as to why?
Read related: Kendall Parkway to nowhere is an intentional slippery slope for UDB
This is important because on Thursday morning, the Miami Herald reported that an FIU student had been recruiting pro Parkway speakers on Instagram.
“Are you or any of your friends available tomorrow 9/27 from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. in County Hall,” read the text message invitation posted on Instagram by FIU student Leo Cosio, according to a story by Doug Hanks. “Will get paid $75 to attend and speak in favor of the Kendall Parkway.”
Cosio, president of the student government association on FIU’s Biscayne Campus, posted a screen grab of a text message, with bold-faced lettering offering more details. “If you’re interested DM me,” the headline of the post said. “Script provided.”
That’s what the pro Parkway people, some of whom didn’t live in the affected area either, started sounding like. Like they were scripted. Ladra noticed it. But then Bovo noticed it, too.
Law enforcement should get the names of those people who “testified” at Thursday’s meeting and talk to them about why they went there. I am sure they will find paid speakers on behalf of the MDX, which had already spent at least $400,000 on a slick PR campaign for the Parkway, or any number of other people, including builders and developers who stand to make millions in contracts. It behooves the state attorney’s office to nip this in the bud.
Read related: MDX spent $400K on PR, including $60K for mayor’s daughter in law
They should also talk to Cosio, who took the post down after the Herald inquired about it and has since said he is against the Parkway. If he is so against it, why did he refuse to say where he found it originally or who offered to pay. “Not at liberty to share,” he told a reporter in a direct message on Twitter. Not at liberty to share? Someone subpoena that guy.
And then they should talk to Bovo about what he knew and why he waved them off. Sketchy.
Does Bovo think that the approval of the Kendall Parkway is going to help his 2020 mayoral bid? Or is he just helping his buddy, Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who sneaked his way into chairman of the MDX board and whose lobbyist son works for MDX contractors?

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The long-debated and controversial 836 extension known as the Kendall Parkway was given final approval 9-4 by the Miami-Dade Commission on Thursday, despite so many warnings, questions and concerns.
That doesn’t mean it’s a done deal, however, and not because it still needs state and federal approval that is hopefully not as purchased as county nods. Lawsuits are threatened and Sen. Marco Rubio, of all people, vows to fight the project because the MDX doesn’t want to buy more land for the Everglades restoration project than it needs to build a 13-mile, six-lane expressway through protected wetlands.
There are so many reasons why this should not happen.
Commissioners were warned that studies show new highways like the Kendall Parkway do not alleviate traffic but only cause more congestion long term. There were unanswered questions about the plan, incomplete information about even the precise route, of which there were at least four. And there are myriad concerns about how this will impact the environment, the Everglades restoration plan and promote future development and sprawl.
It didn’t matter. One could tell it didn’t matter as people pleaded for them to take a step back and wait. Transit advocates even presented options that were less costly and wouldn’t endanger our environment and our water table. In the end, our commissioners voted with the builders and the contractors that pad their campaign accounts and with the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority, which would manage the $650-million to $1 billion project (read: award bids and dole out the funds).
Of course there were some West Kendall residents for it. They are desperate for any relief that they can see on the horizon from a county government that not only forgets about them but also breaks its promises and steals their half-penny tax dollars to fund mediocre bus service and limited MetroRail.
But nobody explained to these people that if that money were invested in the SMART plan transit solutions, in light rail and rapid bus throughout Miami-Dade in the right places then there would be no need for the Kendall Parkway because there would be fewer cars on the road. Nobody explained to them that there are less costly and better alternatives within the UDB that would not promote future development west over what was once protected wetlands.
They think they have no choice. And they do. Or they did.
Because now that the Kendall Parkway is approved, Gimenez and his pocket commissioners, principally Chairman Esteban Bovo, will fall on this “laurel” and do absolutely nothing else for transit. They don’t have to. They did this.
And while most of the commissioners who voted in favor of this were just re-elected — too bad this highway vote didn’t come before the August election — people should remember that.
They did this.

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Part of the outrage with the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority ‘s plan to extend the 836 with the Kendall Parkway along the western edge of the county — and the eastern edge of Everglades wetlands — is the amount of money that went to the slick PR campaign for the yes vote.
MDX reportedly spent at least $150,000 just on a mailer that went out to voters or homeowners in the West Kendall area that has been promised alleviated traffic. The gripe is that they used toll dollars to provide only an option to support the parkway, and not one to oppose it, not that it’s an incredibly inflated amount that looks bogus to lots of legitimate mail vendors.
But what if Ladra told you that what MDX spent on the total “educational campaign” was more than twice that much? And what would you think if you knew part of that money went to Barby Rodriguez, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez‘s daughter-in-law.
Barby Rodriguez-G, as she calls herself works for one of the companies who got part of the MDX pie. EV Services was paid $60,000 of the 836 extension project funding, which from the requested public documents that Ladra has gotten so far — and it doesn’t look like I’ve gotten everything — is close to $390,000.
Read related: Barby Gimenez shows up to no-show job on county dime
And that’s just through May! How much you want to bet it goes over half a million already?
Those are toll dollars spent on PR to convince the public that they need the Kendall Parkway.
EV Services, where Barby Rodriguez is a “public information officer,” is one of three companies that have been paid since at least March to push the Parkway with an “educational campaign.” Bermello, Ajamil & Partners (billed $69,950) and HNTB (billed $258,568.40) are the other two. Both of those are architecture, civil engineering consulting and construction management firms that expect to make hundreds of millions more building the six lane, 13-mile highway estimated at a $1 billion cost.
So the companies who stand to make millions are the ones “educating” us on the project?
That’s for, according to the invoices provided by MDX, various presentations, a briefing with Sen. Annette Taddeo and with Congressman Carlos Curbelo‘s staff, attending weekly meetings, receiving and responding to emails and calls about the Kendall Parkway, drafting radio messages, “printed and cut” 100 more support Kendall Parkway cards, “researched area of 167th avenue for database,” worked on final Spanish translation for a flyer the website, reviewing the script and elements of an educational video, outreach to community leaders and homeowner associations, coordination with content producers and distributors, and multiple mailers, among other tasks.
So if they are handling the “educational campaign” and outreach what is EV Services, which does nothing but public relations (read: propaganda), doing? Or are they just on there for a flat $60K because of the ties to the mayor?
According to one of the March invoices, EV Services did:

Preparation of Leadership Track Educational Campaign and outreach to community leaders, businesses, HOAs and special groups
Attendance in weekly strategy meetings related to Kendall Parkway
Assistance in preparation of collateral materials for Kendall Parkway educational materials
Assist in preparation of digital content for educational campaign
Attendance at coordination meetings with content producers and distributors

So, pretty much they all did the same stuff.
And how much more does EV Services stand to make? And how much of that goes directly to Barby? And did she have to do anything or is she just there so they get the contract?
Ladra is still getting more public records and will report further on this.

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If anyone thinks this extension of the 836 known as the Kendall Parkway is about transit and alleviating the gridlock in the western edge of Miami-Dade County, ask yourself this question: Why would we build a bus stop to nowhere?
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos “Mr. Giveaway”  Gimenez, who has made this the crowning jewel of his final term — and, perhaps, his administration — didn’t wake up the other day suddenly concerned with transit solutions. If that were true, he wouldn’t be stealing millions in People’s Transportation Plan monies to pay for the operation and maintenance of a mediocre at best bus service and limited MetroRail. He would not be pushing so heavily for this Parkway band-aid that will only end up putting more cars on the street.
No, ladies and gentlemen. This is about money. This is about all the campaign contributions that Gimenez took over the years from the property owners who own tracts west of the Urban Development Boundary.
Gimenez is not building a bus stop to nowhere. He is building a bus stop to future development.
Read related: Rumors persist of a new recall effort to oust Carlos Gimenez
If the commission gives final approval to this Dolphin Expressway extension over protected wetlands on Thursday — a plan criticized for its lack of detail because it doesn’t even have a precise route or locations for bus depots, a rendering of which is photographed here — it will prove only one thing: that the UDB can be moved. And once we’ve opened Pandora’s Box, da lo mismo chicha que limonada. The next logical step is to move it again to build something.
Ladra’s money is housing, which is an issue like transit. Glade Villas or something like that. Then come the shopping centers and schools to serve the new neighborhoods.
It’s called a slippery slope. And we are on the tippy top of it looking down.
Because after we move the UDB under the guise of facilitating transit, they will bring it back. Especially if people don’t show up Thursday with pitchforks and demand a stop to this nonsense that is being rushed and railroaded through. There is a lot of private property west of the UDB and those property owners, you can picture them salivating right now, will say “There was no push back! You already moved it once and nothing happened!”
The second time it will be under the guise of affordable housing choices. Just wait.
After all, developers already tried to build a 60-acre warehouse and office complex just west of the line three years ago — citing the planned extension as a plus. They were denied then. But how much you wanna bet the group of developers is salivating, waiting to come back?
Read related: Carlos Gimenez is raising funds for his PAC again — but for who or what?
Are we so desperate for transit solutions that we will accept a temporary halfway fix that puts in jeopardy our long term environmental resiliency? Is transit so horrible that we are willing to take a bite out of our future health?
Let’s forget, for a second, that this is environmentally unsound, that this does not expose sensitive lands to potential development. Let’s forget, momentarily, that it undermines the so-called SMART plan that has real transit solutions. Let’s forget, for a second, that there could very well be alternative sites for routes and bus depots within the UDB and that this has not been explored enough.
This is not a long term solution because building more roads and widening the existing ones does not solve congestion. It only brings more. The Kendall Parkway, which MDX spent at least $150,000 in ads promoting (more on that later), will become The Kendall Parking Lot in five fat minutes. Even Sen. Marco Rubio is against the idea because it puts the Everglades restoration plan at risk. And some lofty promises about MDX buying 1,000 acres of wetlands elsewhere to make up for it doesn’t really help us here, does it?
Nobody except developers will tell you it’s a good idea to move the UDB. Actually, some scientists might. Since the UDB was drawn, and it’s really an artificial line in the sand, we’ve learned more about sea level rise and water flow in the Everglades. There is a theory that the line should be redrawn around actual flood zones, which would call for a more jagged boundary and, very possibly, include areas already developed. It’s probably the right thing to do, but it won’t happen because even the scientists don’t want to touch the UDB.
Once you move it, you show it can be moved.
Laura Reynolds, a consultant with Friends of the Everglades, was quote in the Miami Herald saying what everybody is thinking, which is that nothing the commission promises Thursday about holding the UDB line matters. “The reality is a six-lane highway will force future commissions to move it,” Reynolds said.
So, no, this is not about Gimenez getting religion and seeing the light on transit for the people in West Kendall, an area he never, ever goes to, by the way. This is more likely about developers telling him, “Oye, you’re coming to the end of your last term, bro, and you said you’d move the UDB. Get creative.”
It is up to the 13 commissioners to stop this.  If they don’t, we can really never trust them again. Restrictive covenant will mean nada. Conditions on development agreements will mean nada. Any language they add to “guarantee” there is no future development beyond the UDB or that developers won’t use the Parkway as a motivator will mean nada.
Their word will mean nada.
Tell the mayor and MDX: We are really not building a bus stop to nowhere. Look east.

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