Pinecrest voters rejected a plan Tuesday that would seek $15 million in bonds to pay for approximately 18.5 miles (98,000 linear feet) of pipeline infrastructure so 739 properties can connect to Miami-Dade County water.
The vote came down to 63% against and 37% for taxing themselves an additional 23 cents per $1,000 of taxable value, or an average of $158 a year — of course, some homes would pay much, much more — for the next 20 years so that every property in the village would have access to county water.
Not even the promise of an additional 208 fire hydrants — which are not necessary to cover water needs according to the fire rescue guys but good for drumming up fear votes — could sway villagers who made the decision via a mail-in ballot only.
According to Miami-Dade County’s elections department, 5,720 of the 13,083 registered voters in Pinecrest returned ballots. That amounts to practically a 44% turnout.
The village undertook an aggressive “get out the vote campaign” that included eight — count ’em, eight; two per week, including the last one this past Saturday  — public workshops for residents and property owners to learn about the project and see the map. They were not very well attended.
The village slapped posters in public spaces and sent postcards to all registered voters and a letter from the administration explaining what the financial impact would be.
They got one of those FDOT-like signs with the blinking lights to remind folks to vote — and they hired a guy with a spinning sign on U.S. 1.
Read related: Pinecrest voters to decide if they’ll pay extra taxes to get county water
The two recurring themes among some of the 3,593 who voted against it were (1) a reluctance to subsidize the water hookup for homes of multimillionaires and (2) the concept that it should be a responsibility of Miami-Dade County, which would retain the infrastructure and derive all the profits from the water sales. Those were exactly the reasons that Councilman James McDonald voted against putting the referendum on the ballot and campaigned against it.
The red properties are the ones that need lines. The yellow properties already have lines and will have to pay for hooking up to water in addition to the additional tax.
Miami-Dade County policy dictates that the cost associated with new water infrastructure be borne by private developers/private property owners. Revenue from the sale of water to existing customers can only be used to fund expenditures and improvements to the existing infrastructure, not new infrastructure — not unless, of course, they can cover it with “economic development” like the megamall in Northwest Dade.
But the county has paid for some of the hookups.
When Pinecrest first incorporated in 1996, about 1,500 homes were on wells, without any way to hook up to the county water supply. The 2004 countywide Building Better Communities bond referendum supplied the village with $4.3 million and a Florida state grant gave another $1.5 million for the water pipeline infrastructure up to the sidewalk. That work was called Phase I and Phase II and was completed about 10 years ago, said City Manager Yocelyn Galiano.  Property owners still had to pay for the service hook-up connection from the public right of way to their homes/buildings, she said.
More than 2,100 people voted in favor, including, we suppose, advocates like former mayors Evelyn Greer and Cindy Lerner and former Councilwoman Cheri Ball, right, who basically stepped down to push for the measure and served as treasurer of the Pinecrest H2O political action committee.
Ball and her husband also happen to own a two-story, 6 bedroom, 4 bath house they bought in 2016 for $1.6 million — that doesn’t have access to county water.
Some might think this is over, that the referendum was a way of putting this long fought issue to rest. But Ladra knows it’s never that easy. Ball and the other proponents are unlikely to give up. And while it’s not a big county issue — only 2,000 people lack water access countywide compared to hundreds of thousands on septic tanks (more on that later) — there may be other places to turn to for funding.
“We’ll just keep looking for the funding from the state legislature, which we’be been doing but we keep getting vetoed,” Galiano said. “Maybe with this new governor…”

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Voters in Pinecrest have been asked to decide by next week whether the village should issue $15 million in bonds — the largest in the village’s short history — to provide access to the last 739 properties that do not have Miami-Dade drinking water and add fire hydrants.
If the referendum passes — it’s a mail-in ballots only election and they are due March 26 — property owners will have to pay an additional 23 cents per $1,000 of taxable value every year. The average homeowner would pay about $158 more a year — or a month’s worth of Starbuck’s. Of course, there are homes that will pay much more than that. Over the next 20 years, the average homeowner will pay a total of $3,160 to fund the completion of the Miami-Dade Water and Sewer infrastructure in the village, approximately 18.5 miles (98,000 linear feet) of waterline, and add 208 fire hydrants to village streets.
The fire hydrants will be added because the work is being done — not because they are needed. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue has repeatedly told Pinecrest that they have plenty water capacity to handle any fire in the village.
But proponents of the hookup — which include former and current electeds — are using that to scare people into voting yes.
Read related: More money, less scrutiny, in Miami-Dade water projects
Hooking up to county water has been a big Pinecrest issue since even before incorporation in 1996.  “It has been one of our top priorities over the years, and we have made significant progress on completing this system,” said Mayor Joe Corradino.
“Over the past 22 years the idea of going to referendum has been discussed but not acted upon,” Corradino said in a online message to residents on the city’s website page dedicated to the water vote. “Our Village Charter allows a referendum. Today we have never been closer to completing this project. The number of homes and the total cost are such that we can hold this referendum.”
Back then, there were about 1,500 properties that relied on wells rather than county water. The 2004 countywide Building Better Communities bond referendum supplied Pinecrest with $4.3 million for the water system. The Village also got a Florida state grant of $1.5 million for the infrastructure up to the sidewalk. The $5.8 million paid for infrastructure up to the sidewalk completed about 10 years ago, said City Manager Yocie Galiano, calling that Phase I and Phase II of the water system.  Property owners still had to pay for the service hook-up connection from the public right of way to their homes/buildings, she said.
The red properties are the ones that need lines. The yellow properties already have lines and will have to pay for hooking up to water in addition to the additional tax.
Galiano said only 535 or so homes were hooked up as part of Phase I and Phase II. Then the county money ran out. Another 200 or so were homes or properties that were redeveloped or for whatever reason and paid out of pocket to hook up on their own, almost one by one. The 739 homeowners who remain did not want, at that time, to pay an assessment to finish the job.
Miami-Dade County policy dictates that the cost associated with new water infrastructure be borne by private developers/private property owners. Revenue from the sale of water to existing customers can only be used to fund expenditures and improvements to the existing infrastructure, not new infrastructure — not unless they can cover it with “economic development” like the megamall in Northwest Dade.
After some lobbying for years by a group of the affected homeowners, the village council voted to put the referendum on the ballot in January. It was a 4-1 vote, with Councilman James McDonald dissenting. In an op-ed in Community Newspapers, McDonald wrote that it was unfair to saddle the entire town with a 20-year tax on something they will not reap benefits from.
“Once these water lines are built they will be turned over to Miami-Dade County for the county to derive all the revenue. Pinecrest gets nothing but debt for 20 years,” he said. “From my perspective, it is not fiscally responsible to do this to incur the largest bond debt ever in Pinecrest’s history and then give the infrastructure we build to Miami-Dade County.
“Pinecrest will not own the water lines nor will it get the revenue stream from the users to finance the bond,” McDonald wrote. “It is simply not appropriate to saddle the entire village with a debt that will only benefit 740 parcels and where Miami-Dade county will receive the revenues.”
McDonald said he can think of plenty of other things that more village residents would prefer spending that kind of money on — parks, a gymnasium, maybe — and then there’s the nagging little fact that it does nothing about the fact that 95% of the village has septic tanks, a growing sea level rise issue.
If the infrastructure was funded via a special taxing district of only the 739 property owners affected, that would cost an average of about $20,000 over 20 years, city administrators said. It would be $1,500 annually, not $150.
Still, some property owners don’t care if it’s not their problem: They don’t want to pay for their neighbors’ upgrades.
“While I fully realize the issue at stake, I just cannot seem to grasp the concept of making every Pinecrest property owner (whether it be a home or vacant land) for an issue belonging to just 750 homes,” wrote Francisco Mehech in a letter to the editor in the Pinecrest Tribune. He owns four properties and just sold a property that he had to personally pay the hookups for, he said.
“It just doesn’t seem fair to place the burden of these select few into the pocketbooks of the many other property owner and/or residents in the Village,” Mehech wrote, adding that he is a no.
But there is no organized opposition. And there is organized advocacy.
Proponents have formed a political action committee called Pinecrest H2O, with former Councilwoman Cheri Ball as treasurer, to push the yes vote. It is unfortunate that some of these advocates — who include former Mayor Cindy Lerner — seem to be misleading voters and provoking fears about fire safety to get the referendum passed.
Corradino said that while the village will “facilitate this referendum,” the village cannot, by law, advocate for a yes or no vote. Except it sure seems they have their fingers crossed.
The web page features a colorful, upbeat image of the word “Inspire” and the village undertook an aggressive “get out the vote campaign” that included eight — count ’em, eight; two per week, including the last one this past Saturday  — public workshops for residents and property owners to learn about the project and see the map. The village slapped posters in public spaces and sent postcards to all registered voters and a letter from the administration explaining what the financial impact would be.
They got one of those FDOT-like signs with the blinking lights to remind folks to vote — and they hired a guy with a spinning sign on U.S. 1.
“We are doing everything we can to get the vote out,” Galiano said.
It’s apparently working. The Miami-Dade Elections Department reports that as of Tuesday, 3,948 ballots had been returned from the 13,300 mailed to voters. That represents a turnout so far of practically 30%.
“In over two decades we have never been closer to bringing this issue to a conclusion,” Corradino said. And we’ll know next week.
Unless, of course, there’s a lawsuit.

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If there is anything we should have learned from the discovery last year that the mayor’s best friend was making $200 an hour as a subcontractor on a Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department project is that these contracts need a little more scrutiny.

But it looks like we learned nothing because they aren’t getting it.

There are eight contracts worth more than $82.5 million on the county commission agenda Wednesday. But they are bunched up together and on the consent agenda, which means there is no discussion — unless one of our more enlightened commissioners pulls it out to get more details. You know who you are.

They might want to know, for instance, that the mayor’s daughter-in-law works for one of the subcontractors on one of the eight contracts.

Read related story: Barby Gimenez shows up to no-show job on county dime

The three resolutions are to ratify the mayor’s actions. The commission Wednesday just has to accept them; it looks like there’s really no choice. One of them should ask. Because these are not small contracts:

• A two-year countywide contract for cleaning and televising of large diameter sewers for $6 million to Layne Inliner LLC
• A construction contract for water plant upgrades to Poole & Kent for $24.9 million
• A one-year countywide contract for rehabilitation of sanitary sewers by the sectional living method to UIT LLC for $4 million
• A construction contract for the north district wastewater treatemant plant new pumps for existing deep injection well-pumping station to Poole & Kent for $6.3 million
• A two-year countywide contract for removal and replacemnt of “sanitary sewer gravity mains” to Metro Express Inc. for $14 million
• An eight-year (!) non-exclusive professional services agreement for hydrogeologic and engineering services for disposal, water supply, monitoring wells and aquifer storage and recovery to MWH Americas Inc for $16.5 .million
• A six-year (!) non-exclusive professional services agreement for engineering, design and related services for the design of large diameter water pipelines to Parson Brinckerhoff, Inc, for $5.5 million
• A six-year (!) non-exclusive professional services agreement for engineering design and related services for large diameter water pipelines to EAC Consulting for $5.5 million (which sounds redundant and like someone is spreading the wealth among more golden ticket holders),

These are certainly things that must be done. We have federal and state court-mandated consent decrees to correct the years of neglect on our water and sewer system that our county allowed to be perpetrated — perhaps intentionally so that they could then dole out millions of dollars to their friends and contributors. There are 81 consent decree projects, according to the county. And it’s why your water bill went up 6 percent last year, is going up 9 percent this year and will increase by about 30 percent over the next 10 years.

That’s a lot of millions to pass around to the mayor’s family and friends. We’re just getting started.

In this case, the mayor — who was just elected raising $8 million or so worth of gifts from some of these very same contractors and their lobbyists — is doling out contracts and getting the commission’s approval afterwards. Yes, this is allowed because, in 2014, the commission, in all its wisdom (not!), approved a resolution authorizing the mayor to award contracts for already funded capital projects “and related goods and services, and to accelerate the approval of WASD’s (1) consent decree projects and (2) projects identified in WASD’s Multiy Year Capital Plan’s Capital Improvements Program without the need of prior board approval but subject to ratification.”

Read related story: Why Carlos Gimenez should not have four more years

But some of these contracts date as far back as September, which makes Ladra wonder what kept them from the commission ratification for so long. An election, perhaps? Wasn’t Gimenez allowed to award these contracts so they could be expidited? Does this look expidited to anyone? Or does this mean that these prizes, er, we mean contracts have already been awarded and the commission action is just a rubberstamp afterthought?

Of course, this has nothing to do with expiditing nada. This was just good campaign planning. And then they wonder why people think this is the multi-million payback of IOUs collected during the campaign.

Only half of the contractors on Wednesday’s agenda had immediately obvious connections to Gimenez and his campaign. But it’s the big half: $53.2 million of the $82.5 million public trough buffet.

Poole & Kent Co. is represented by former Miami City Manager Sergio Pereira. Parsons Brinckerhoff is represented by Perreira and Gimenez buddy Alex Heckler, who has already gotten pieces of the WASA consent decree pie. MWH Americas is represented by Miguel de Grandy.

All of them have given to Gimenez’s campaign. Heckler had at least one big fundraiser for the mayor in Miami Beach. Most of the companies are familiar from the mayor’s campaign reports also.

But if you look more closely, at the back-up material that comes with the commission agenda, there are also 39 subcontractors between them getting a piece of this very big tarta de guayaba. These include:

1. BND Engineers
2. FR Aleman & Associates (on two contracts)
3. HBC Engineering (on two contracts)
4. HydroDesigns LLC
5. Kimley Horn & Associates
6. MCO Construction and Services
7. Milian Swain and Associates
8. Mirecki Geoscience LLC
9. Schlumberger Water Services USA
10. Tetra Tech Inc
11. The Sharpton Group P.A.
12. AMBRO Inc.
13. Aluces Corporation
14. MAGBE Consulting Services
15. Nova Consulting Inc.
16. Bello and Bello Land Surveying
17. EV Services (where the mayor’s daughter-in-law works)
18. Oracle Consulting Group, LLC
19. Robayna & Associates
20. SRS Engineering
21. 300 Engineering Group
22. Benson Electric, Inc. (on two contracts)
23. Mar’s Contractors, Inc.
24. Exceletech Coating and Application, Inc.
25. Emerson Process Management Power and Water Solutions, Inc.
26. Sunshine State Air Conditioning
27. Gomez and Son Fence
28. Corcel Corp.
29. Ovivo USA LLC
30. Dixie Metal Products, Inc.
31. Shand & Jurs
32. Ferguson Waterworks (on two contracts)
33. Infrastructure Repair Systems
34. Manufactured Technologies Corporation
35. Revere Control Systems, Inc.
36. Carter and Verplanck, Inc
37. Equipment Plus Solutions
38. American Builders Masters
39. A & B Pipe and Supply

Apparently, Gimenez has a lot of IOUs.

Number 17 isn’t really one of the IOUs: EV Services, the company where Barby Rodriguez Gimenez , the mayor’s daughter-in-law, works doing “public outreach.” That’s more like “criteria” for the contractor to get the job. Barby — photographed to the right with Julio Gimenez, who used to work for Munilla Construction Management (which is conspicuously absent from Wednesday’s gravy train) — already has a piece of another contract, getting paid $21.75 an hour.

We don’t know exactly how much more an hour she will get with this contract. That is in further documents that are not yet available to us or to the commission. Those are the details that the few inquisitive commissioners we have left should ask. And Ladra is talking to you, Commissioners Joe Martinez and Xavier Suarez, because Daniella Levine Cava is white water rafting out west on vacation with her husband (she left to the airport from the special anti-immigration commission meeting Friday).

Because these subcontracts is where the devilish details are. This is where the mayor’s BFF’s existing contract exists. Ralph Garcia Toledo, who went from being then Commissioner Gimenez’s driver and bodyguard in the 2011 campaign to being his campaign finance chair and a county employee in 2016, is making $200 an hour for what he self-identifies as mostly clerical work — going to meetings and tracking paperwork. He stands to make a maximum of $18 million over 12 years. A maximum of $18 million.

Read related story: Mayor’s BFF is back for another county contract payola

Well, on that contract anyway. Because it ain’t enough. While Garcia Toledo’s company, GT Construction, is not one of the subcontractors listed for the contracts being considered Wednesday, it is on another contract that is coming up — because this is just the beginning, ladies and gentlemen. A resolution approved by the Chairman’s Policy Council earlier this month and headed to the full commission is a contract award for $11 million for engineering services to Parsons Brinckerhoff (lucky guys they get another one!) to help the Department of Transportation and Public Works “execute projects in its capital improvements plan and implement the Strategic Miami Area Rapid Transit (SMART) Plan, including the study and implementation of future technology, such as driverless vehicles.”

That’s right, the mayor’s one-time driver is working on the future application someday in the county of driverless vehicles. Because this is where the county needs to spend its public dollars? Yes, the day is coming, as a lobbyist was quick to scold me the last time I wrote about this. Ford announced last year that it would release it’s first fully autonomous car — no steering wheel, no brake or gas pedal — in 2021. But should we be studying that now or can we take care of the real transit issues we are facing and worry about that in 2021 when we know what we’re dealing with?

There is little doubt in anybody’s mind that Ralph’s job at water and sewer is a palanca position, overpaid if not downright duplicated, and most likely unnecessary in the first place. Certainly there are county employees — probably dozens of them — that are more qualified than Ralph to do this job for less than $200 an hour. But there it is. And nobody does anything about it. This new subcontract sure doesn’t seem to be any different.

How many more of the 39 subcontractors are getting paid unnecessarily? How much more could those $82.5 million stretch to address other water and sewer issues? Ralph stands to make $18 million over 12 years just on the first contract. Couldn’t we better spend $18 million on something else?

Nobody has talked about the septic tanks in many parts of East and West Kendall — including Pinecrest and Continental Park — that need to be addressed due to sea level rise. That’s an immediate fix. Not more talk about sea level rise. Real action that needs to be taken, sooner rather than later. Let’s start with the homes and properties closest to the water. How much money are we wasting that could go to remediating that?

Commissioners need to go through these contracts more carefully. These are huge numbers and it’s easy to get away with a few hundred thousand here, $18 million there. They should not be abdicating their responsibility to a strong mayor with a history of giving work to those on his friends and family plan.