The public will have six opportunities this week to hear details about the proposed $11 billion, 2023-24 Miami-Dade budget — which includes a proposed $36 annual garbage fee increase — beginning Wednesday in North Dade.

But will they have a chance to make any meaningful input? That is the real question. Are these just futile exercises for the sake of optics? To make it seem like a participatory process?

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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.

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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.

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But county ‘ambassadors’ program with $25K stipends was killed

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About six hours after the first public hearing began Thursday, Miami-Dade Commissioners gave preliminary approval to the mayor’s $10 billion budget, which focuses on affordable housing, infrastructure and clean water while cutting the tax rate by 1%.

“This year we will continue rebuilding our community and economy stronger than ever by prioritizing critical investments in making Miami-Dade more affordable and livable, upgrading our infrastructure for future prosperity and resilience, helping small businesses thrive, and connecting residents to opportunity,” Mayor Daniella Levine Cava writes in her budget message.

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Miami-Dade Commissioner Keon “Pay-to-Play” Hardemon showed his true petty colors on Tuesday when he tried to take $550,000 allocated in the county budget from the Sant La Haitian Neighborhood Center in North Miami — which just so happens to be operated by Gepsie Metellus, who ran against him last year for the seat vacated by Audrey Edmonson.

And he did it using the same dirty tactics he used in the campaign.

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