City commissioners in Miami Beach will discuss increasing their own stipends and staffing at Wednesday’s commission meeting.

Right now, the mayor gets a monthly stipend of $2,000, a figure that has not been adjusted in 18 years, according to a commission memo from staff. Commissioners currently get $2,250, a figure that was adjusted five years ago. No idea why the mayoral stipend was ignored then.

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Miami Beach resident Lynette Long, a former university professor who has authored more than 30 books, recently took a drive through the city and noted all the ceremonially co-designated streets, which are named to honor someone for something. What she found was an astonishing gap.

There are at least 18 streets that are co-designated for men and only one street that is co-designated for a woman, Barbara Capitman. While Capitman deserves it for her work creating the Miami Design Preservation League and her efforts to preserve the Art Deco district, she is not alone.

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Party on, spring breakers!

The city of Miami Beach can’t ban alcohol sales from 2 to 5 a.m. like they wanted to this week and next for the peak of the Spring Break season, when thousands of college students from around the country descend.

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If you live or work near Miami Beach City Hall, you may have seen the big black billboard truck circling around this week with City Manager Jimmy Morales‘ face plastered on all sides. Yes, from far away it did look a little like Roger Stone’s face. It wasn’t.
“Shame on you, City Manager Jimmy Morales” reads the back of the truck. “Public safety workers deserve fair pay,” reads the side.
And no, this is not the police or fire union attacking Morales. It’s the Communications Workers of America Local 3178, which represents close to 400 employees, mostly lifeguards and 911 dispatchers — the other people whose jobs it is to save lives — but also clerical and code enforcement workers.
After more than two years of getting zero cost of living increases and ahead of Friday’s impasse hearing at City Hall, the largest union in Miami Beach — and the one with the most women and minorities — has ramped up its campaign calling on city leaders to treat them the same as the other city unions, all of which have gotten salary adjustments since 2015.
And they have recently gotten the support of the For Our Future Action Fund political action committee, led by Ashley Walker, former Obama for America state director who now works at Mercury Partners. In a short time, For Our Future has launched a website called MiamiBeachEverydayHeroes.com, an online advertising campaign (photographed right) calling Morales a union buster, at least one direct snail mailer and the traveling billboard. The group has also collected about 1,000 signatures in support of the workers.
Florida Division of Elections documents show that For Our Future Action Fund was created in 2016 and funded with $80,000 from a Washington DC PAC with the same name. It spent all that money on phone banks and political mailers in Palm Beach Gardens last year. There has been no expense other than bank fees since then through the end of March and April expenditures or contributions have not yet been reported so we don’t know who is financing this campaign.
But the union leadership felt as if they had no other choice but to get professional help getting their message out.
“The city manager hasn’t negotiated in good faith,” said union president Rich McKinnon. “We’re going to show tomorrow what we’re asking for and how much it costs versus how much it cost for the other employees.” He would not make the analysis available to Political Cortadito until after Friday’s hearing.
This battle has been a long time coming, however. The city declared impasse on the union negotiations more than a year ago. It took six months to agree on and argue before a special magistrate and another six months or so for the special magistrate to issue his recommendations and then no time at all for Morales to decline all of them. He dangled a small raise in front of the union, but only if they gave up other benefits, such as any right they have to go before the somewhat still powerful city personnel board with gripes or complaints. McKinnon said he is not willing to do that.
“I asked the city manager if he put that into the other contracts, and of course he didn’t,” McKinnon told Ladra, stressing that they just want to be treated equally.
The move certainly seems punitive and is not very flattering to Morales, who was once the personification of government ethics when he served as a county commissioner but has fallen quite far down the slippery slope since he crossed to the dark side.
McKinnon further explained that the CWA workers accepted necessary cuts in the past when the city was short on resources, but always with the idea that they would be made whole when the economic slowdown has ended. Currently, he added, the city has a surplus of about $9 million, while employees are still struggling.
One of those is Janelle Gilbert, a former schoolteacher who started as a lifeguard at the Flamingo Park public pool, the largest aquatic center of three in the city, and is now a supervisor there. A single mom who lives on $24.10 an hour in a one bedroom apartment two blocks from the park, Gilbert is proud to serve as a city Goodwill Ambassador and her 13-year-old son is a Police Athletic League volunteer. But she thought her promotion a few years back would mean her situation would improve.
“I’m grateful for my 40 hours but there’s not much difference because the cost of living keeps going up,” she told Ladra.
A 3 percent raise for Gilbert would represent about 75 cents an hour, but if she gets it retroactive — which is what sources tell Ladra the workers want — it could represent $300 or $400 a month more. “That’s a lot for a single mom,” Gilbert said. “I could get a new apartment for me and my son. That is life changing.”
Morales, McKinnon says, is standing in the way for no reason. It would only take about a third of this year’s surplus to make the workers whole again, he added.
Hmmm… isn’t that about the same amount of money that was stolen electronically from the city by someone who got the city’s bank account numbers and started transferring funds right under Morales’ unaware nose?
In fact, the trouble with the CWA contract started about the time the money started to go missing. Is Morales trying to make the shortage up on the literal backs of lifeguards and 911 call takers?
The impasse hearing begins at 9 a.m. tomorrow at City Hall, but don’t expect any updates in real time. McKinnon told Ladra late Thursday that the city had informed them that the meeting would not be televised and that there would be no public comments allowed.

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Proponents and opponents of an imagined light rail train that loops around South Beach will discuss the pros and cons of the project at a community forum Thursday night organized by Miami Beach United.

Last we heard, there are three possible deals on the table, all from qualified bidders. Proposals are due Nov. 3. But everybody seems to believe that Alstom is the favored vendor after Mayor Philip Levine and City Manager Jimmy Morales traveled to France to meet with them. Morales was instructed by the commission to begin negotiations with Alstom in July. 

The rail, which the community is calling a streetcar, will loop around South Beach from the convention center to 5th Street and from Dade Boulevard and Alton Road to Washington Avenue. It is expected to cost about $387 to build and $16 million a year to operate (at first because that grows). And it is projected to take five years to build.

This comes after Levine, Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado and Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez apparently lost their marbles and agreed last year to seek their rail systems separately. They abandoned plans for Bay Link that would cross the MacArthur Causeway and connect the Beach with downtown Miami until later. And they basically rejected more than $8 million already secured in state funding for a new study. All each city had to provide was $417,000. And they might still be able to get federal funding. 

Supporters say the loop is a good first step to the eventual Bay Link and that it will take cars off the street.

Opponents it will make traffic worse because it will cause chaos on Beach streets as they are torn up once again and because it’s made for tourists. Most locals would rather walk five blocks than go around what they call “Levine’s loop” or “the train to nowhere” and many say it is a waste of taxpayer funds. It could also be called the Alex Heckler express since the lobbyist (who just hosted a fundraiser with Levine for Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez) is the one promoting this idea.

“Nobody wants this taxpayer paid train to cater to tourists,” said Commissioner Kristen Rosen-Gonzalez. “Levine has not listened to all the residents who do not want that train. And there are a lot of them.”

That’s why the forum tonight might turn into a train-trashing session. MBU’s stated goals are to:

• Educate residents on the Miami Beach Light Rail Project with some background on Miami-Dade County SMART plans
• Provide residents with “pros and cons” regarding the plan
• Identify ways residents can be engaged throughout the planning process
• Generate ideas and feedback for the Miami Beach Light Rail Plan

Nowhere does it say stop the train. But there will be people who want to do that. Robert Lansburgh, who leads the Stop the Train movement (more than 700 likes on Facebook) is participating. So is Michael Barrineau, president of the South of Fifth Neighborhood Association. There are also light rail advocates like Mark Needle, an active resident of the Flamingo Park neighborhood.

Activist Frank Del Vecchio will attend. He said the city has not answered 11 questions that the West Avenue Neighborhood Association has about the train’s impact to residents. He is concerned that the city has already entered into consulting contracts worth more than $6 million and hired staff dedicated to advance the project.

The questions are: 

1. What are the consultant reports and when are they due?
2. Are the reports public record and how can they be accessed?
3. Will the reports address the particulars of elevating tracks along the route addressing Sea Level Rise? 
4. Separated out, what is cost of streetcar? Of  street raising? Of pump stations? Of intermodal transit facilities?
5. Will the reports provide a construction budget and timetable?
6. Will the street raisings be separately budgeted?
7. What Streetcar and related items are in the recently approved 2016/2017 (both operating and capital)
8. What is the current timetable for city commission consideration of and action on the Streetcar project: (Please identify the action item and the scheduled or expected date of consideration, and type of action required (Resolution, Ordinance, Budget amendment, Contract approval, etc.)
9. Will the studies identify the required number of intermodal transit facilities, the minimum required capacity of each for number of trains to be serviced and stored, and the minimum number of vehicle parking spaces to be provided?  Will the locations, either specific or approximate, of such facilities be provided?
10. What agencies other than the City of Miami Beach are required to approve any aspect of the project, including configuration of State Roads located in Miami Beach that are included in the route?  If State Roads are included in the route whose responsibility will be the raising of those roads for sea level rise purposes?
11. What is the nature of the approval or approvals required?  Please cite the relevant requirement(s).

Del Vecchio also has loads of other questions about connectivity and how committed the county and Metropolitan Planning Organization are to connecting light rail since they’ve been talking more and more about rapid bus transit. Furthermore, he points to some study that indicates traffic could actually increase because of left turn limitations caused by Levine’s loop.

Hopefully, these questions will be answered Thursday night at the forum, titled “Are We On The Right Track?” It will begin at 6 p.m. at the Miami Beach Woman’s Club, 2401 Pine Tree Dr. (Free parking at the Hebrew Academy).

But Ladra doubts the conversation will end there.

Let’s call it the kiss and tell ordinance.

Miami Beach Commissioner John Aleman wants to introduce legislation that would require all the elected officials in the city to disclose — on a printed form — the names of anyone they have sexual relations with that could benefit from their vote.

It’s on the agenda for Wednesday’s meeting. Really.

Disclosure requirements on the Beach already force electeds to name any family or business relationships that could benefit from commission action and public officers must recuse themselves before the discussion on any such beneficial item begins. Aleman’s ordinance would amend the city code to add “personal relationship” to that and further defines that as “a close personal relationship such as a long-term friendship, or a dating, sexual, or romantic relationship, that would cause a reasonable person to conclude that the public officer is likely to act or fail to act as a result of the relationship, or which appears to a reasonable person as inappropriate in the context of the proper discharge of the public official’s duties in the public interest and gives an appearance of impropriety.”

Because this is 2016, after all, and sexual doesn’t necessarily mean romantic. Or dating.

So does that mean hook-ups count? Do crushes? Because Ladra has heard that those longtime, unrequited longings can be just as influential on one’s decision-making process as a bonafide boyfriend.

The common thought among Beach activists and political observers is that this is retaliation against Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, political payback for squashing a $1 million gift to the Shore Club redevelopers at the last meeting in September.

Rosen Gonzalez, a single mom, had the wherewithal and integrity to ask why the city should waive $1 million in mitigation fees if the developers of the Fusano Residences and Shore Club — luxury condos, starting at $2 million, and hotel units (with a 500-seat restaurant and probably at least one nightclub) — don’t want to build the required amount of parking spaces on the property for the density they’ve proposed. The area, she says, is already a nightmare for off-street parking and cannot absorb more. We can all attest to that. The “area” being South Beach.

Aleman said she wanted to accommodate the developer. But the item was deferred and seeing how its been categorized as a loophole gift to the developer and could be under investigation (more on that later), it is probably dead in the water by now. As it should be.

This is the fallout.

After all, Rosen Gonzalez got wise to the loophole thanks to her “close personal relationship” with Kent Harrison Robbins, a longtime preservation activist who also happens to be a land use attorney (read: lobbyist). Yes, they dated. They are not dating now, but they are still friends. After all, some of us are adults here. And while they were friends with benefits, he did not benefit with any item before the commission. But it really does seem that both she and he are the targets of this legislation.

“It has bothered them because he is telling me what they are doing,” Rosen Gonzalez said. “He was just educating me. I didn’t even understand how to read these land use items. It was like Chinese.”

Robbins helped her because he supported her, as most preservationists did. He never asked for a favor. If you ask Ladra, the one who benefited was Rosen Gonzalez — and, by extension, her constituents. Her education saved taxpayers $1 million that, while earmarked for parking and such like Commissioner Michael Grieco said, could offset general dollars spent in that arena or be used to — here’s a concept — actually mitigate the damage of the new development. And she may have also stopped a possible precedent.

Read related story: Kristen Rosen Gonzalez wins in Miami Beach race

But it’s not like Aleman and Rosen were ever BFFs. Aleman was recruited and backed by millionaire Mayor Philip Levine and ran on his slate next to Betsy Perez, who Rosen beat last year to get on the dais. Rosen is a lone independent in a sea of puppets — the only real elected on the Beach who has never been in Levine’s pocket (because Commissioner Grieco just crawls out 0ut now and then). It’s just that this Robbins educated Rosen on the land use loophole and Aleman wants them to pay for it. Who knows how many other people are involved and may be hurt? Aleman doesn’t care. Because Robbins is making Rosen Gonzalez too damn smart! The point is to intimidate her and bully her. Again. And she won’t be bullied.

By the way, how do you define close friendship? That’s sort of subjective, no? “Do you know how many people I became close friends with during the campaign? And just because I’m dating or sleeping with someone doesn’t influence my vote,” Rosen Gonzalez said.

Amen to that.

“I’m disappointed. This is immature, pathetic — a personal vendetta,” the freshman commissioner said. “This is not leadership.”

The kiss and tell ordinance has been the talk of Facebook this weekend. Rosen Gonzalez urged her friends and supporters — most of whom are aghast — to write to Commissioner Aleman (johnaleman@miamibeachfl.gov) and ask her to withdraw the ordinance. “Tell her there are more important items to worry about. Ask her why she did not vote for my ethics ordinance on prohibiting campaign consultants from lobbying, but is worried about commissioners’ private lives.”

But Ladra would ask you please not to. I mean, can you imagine better blog fodder?! Rosen Gonzalez is not the only person on the dais who checks the single box. In fact, both Levine and Commissioner Ricky Arriola are famously (and curiously?) single. Don’t you want to know who they’re dating? Or just hooking up with?

This ordinance will let us, the public, know who are the playboys with a different flavor of the month all the time and who is completely and utterly alone. It may not rank up there in importance with flooding and sea level rise and overdevelopment or preservation on North Beach or even Zika — but it still makes for good readin’.

Maybe we can have the electeds wear something that lets us know when they’re in a compromising relationship. Oh, I know! A scarlet letter? Or should we just reserve those for the electeds having an affair? Because those will have to be disclosed, too.

Ooooohhh… nevermind. This ridiculous legislation will never see the light of day.