Miami Herald | South Dade Matters

April 12, 2013

Lynda Bell’s Misuse of the Public Trust

Some things are a big deal and others are not. Some SDM readers may find this post to be a little nitpicky, but this Miami Herald Neighbors story rubbed us the wrong way.

Cutler Bay will soon have more than 100 new apartments for low to moderate income seniors.

Construction has begun on Marilyn Hope’s Place, a 7,000-square-foot facility that will include 101 independent-living apartments for people 55 and older. The four-story complex also will include dining and activity rooms, as well as an exercise room, laundry facilities, and a computer room. Read more here.

No, SDM is not saying that housing for low income seniors is a bad thing. The problem is the name: Marilyn Hope’s Place. Marilyn Hope was County Commissioner Lynda Bell’s mother and the project was mostly funded with $11 million of county bond money . SDM presumes Ms. Hope was a wonderful lady, but should a publicly funded housing project be named after the mother of the elected official who voted on and perhaps controlled the funding?

There is a practice at public universities in Florida of naming buildings on campuses after former Presidents. Many public buildings around the state are named after important historical figures. None of this activity really bothers SDM because these folks served the institutions and/or the people making them worthy of such a distinction.

Then there are examples of powerful state legislators wielding budget and appropriations authority so that buildings they fund will bear their names. This kind of self-aggrandizement has always seemed tacky and even corrupt to SDM.

Now Lynda Bell takes this practice in a new direction by using her power to force her mother’s name on a publicly funded apartment complex. Is this a proper use of the public trust we grant to an elected official? Of course not.

SDM proposes the following test be used when naming public structures: Would the person be honored but for the influence of the politician proposing the name? Naming the housing complex for Ms. Hope fails this test based on the facts SDM knows.

Perhaps more troubling, though, is Ms. Bell’s willingness to exercise her power for a purely personal gain.

SDM Wonders: If Ms. Bell believes her position grants her the prerogative of naming a building after her mother, what other questionable prerogatives does she claim for herself?

12 comments

March 11, 2013

Chutzpa Award: Marlins Owner Jeffrey Loria

SDM couldn’t let this cloudy Monday pass without handing out a Chutzpa Award to Miami Marlins Owner Jeffery Loria. To get a feel for just how out-of-touch with the rest of us this megalomaniac is, SDM recommends the very thorough Miami Herald article Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria says tourists — not taxpayers — paid most of public cost for stadium.

Here are the offending words in their wretched – and retch inducing – glory:

Those who have attacked us are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. The majority of public funding came from hotel taxes, the burden of which is incurred by tourists who are visiting our city, NOT the resident taxpayers…..

If SDM wasn’t completely sure of Loria’s unmatched expertise at pulling the wool over the eyes of local governments, we might be tempted to think the man doesn’t know what the hell he is talking about.

The tourist taxes that were wasted onthe Marlins’ stadium are directed toward such monstrosities because the state legislature limited the use of those taxes to pay for sports facilities, among other things. Got that? Repeat: the reason hotel taxes and other taxes were spent to prop up a failing millionaire’s private business was because our legislators explicitly permit the practice.

Of course, Loria also knows that anything our legislators give they can also take away. So, if there were any real outrage at multi-million dollar giveaways to multi-millionaires, our legislators could quickly rewrite the law and redirect the money to other worthy purposes. But they won’t, because Loria and his minions make sure to shower legislators and other politicos with money and freebies. (Don’t look for this issue in the Village of Palmetto Bay’s legislative agenda, either. Our fearless leaders are plenty busy kissing the county schools superintendent’s backside.)

What makes Loria’s statement so worthy of a Chutzpa Award – followed by the Biggest Putz of the Year Award – is that the question of who pays these taxes is an intentional distraction from the real question all taxpayers should be asking: for which purposes should these taxes be spent?

You see, communities like ours do not have an infinite number of revenue sources – and certainly not an infinite number of sources as spectacularly efficient as hotel taxes. Sure, it makes sense to tie the taxes to their sources of revenue, but doing so is not constitutionally required. Legislative choice – informed by local preference – causes these taxes to flow into Mr. Loria’s engorged wallet.

SDM Wonders: Will legislators ever demand that the proceeds of these taxes be used to address important local problems or will they content themselves to line the pockets of fat cats?

To Loria, SDM Says: There is an old saying that goes, you can’t un-ring a bell. No matter how many obnoxious letters you purchase in the local fish wrapper, you’re nothing but a leech on a what is – at its core – a terribly poor community. Porqué no te calles, ya?

5 comments

March 6, 2013

PB: Roberts Rules Guest Post by Vice Mayor John Dubois

Below is a verbatim message posted as a comment to yesterday’s post PB: March 4 Council Meeting Quick Bites. SDM replies after Mr. Dubois’s comment.

SDM, You seem to spend a great deal of time reviewing and researching issues brought up at our council meetings and I applaud you for all the work you do. Below was my next day reaction to the RR controversy. It was not researched, rather, it was what I believed to be a common sense interpretation of the outcome of the sequence of events relating to the vote on the Coral Reef Park Master Plan. I am not an attorney, so, it may very well be incorrect but I would be interested in hearing your opinion as well as opinions from your readers that consider themselves subject matter experts.
————————————–
We need to be careful not to follow one mistake with another.

To recap last night’s sequence of events;

Roberts Rules are procedural, Council Votes are legally binding.
The vote was cast 3-2 on item 11a – the master plan mod for CR Park.
Since a super majority of 4 out of 5 were required to pass this, it failed.

Whether the council person [Fiore] who made the motion spoke against the item in violation of Robert’s rules is irrelevant.
If that did happen, the chair could have stopped it as it was procedurally incorrect, however, she did not and the vote was legally binding and the master plan approval failed.
Therefore, subsequent actions based on Councilman Fiore’s incorrectly modified Nay vote by the City Attorney are legally null and void.

I Don’t think there is anything to discuss except the staff should figure out how to notify the residents of PB that the master plan vote for CR Park failed last night.

Thank You

John DuBois

SDM Reply

First, thanks for commenting Mr. Vice Mayor, especially since SDM wasn’t very nice to you in the main post.

Second, SDM is not sure exactly where the matter stands either.

Clearly, the village attorney is under a moral obligation at the very least (she may very well be under an ethical duty, too) to find a way to correct her error. If she fails to do so, can we as residents be sure the Coral Reef Park Master Plan was adopted legally and is therefore binding on the council?

And what about her other opinions? For example, SDM has not watched the meeting’s discussion on whether the village is required to release the transcripts of the shade sessions related to the Palmer litigation. However, according to the Miami Herald story on the meeting, Boutsis said “that while the appellate court has ruled on one case, the records cannot be released because they are intertwined with another Palmer Trinity case that is still open.”

SDM found a copy of the Florida Attorney General’s opinion letter to Ms. Boutsis where she asked questions related to this issue. The letter is somewhat dense, but the initial paragraphs make clear that Ms. Boutsis did not ask whether the statutory requirement of releasing transcripts at the conclusion of the litigation extended to other cases involving the same litigants.

SDM Says: Ms. Boutsis appears to be trying to break new legal ground by arguing that the village may withhold the shade session transcripts from the public because the phrase “ conclusion of the litigation” (a term that is defined in section 286.011, Florida Statutes) applies to multiple lawsuits, rather than to each lawsuit individually.

SDM Recommends In addition to asking Ms. Boutsis to explain her opinion on the Robert’s Rules of Order issue, you may want to ask her to explain in writing her statement regarding the shade session transcripts, which SDM sees as resting on a very shaky legal foundation.

2 comments

February 12, 2013

Solving the Dolphins Stadium Problem

SDM had one of those moments of clarity this morning that must be shared. SDM knows how the public can participate in the remodeling of the Dolphin stadium without sending existing tax dollars to a private land owner.

Instead of the referendum/Super Bowl plan discussed in today’s Miami Herald, the county should pass an ordinance permitting Steve Ross to impose a tax on every ticket sold at his stadium. The proceeds of this ticket tax could then be used to finance the roof project.

If the county commission wanted to get really wild, it could impose the ticket surcharge tax on all tickets sold for professional sports inside the county’s jurisdiction. The county could use the proceeds to finance stadium construction and renovation to its heart’s content, assuming the funds were not diverted for other purposes unrelated to the tax.

SDM’s solution is a win-win for everyone because the cost of the tax would be borne by those who benefit from it, sort of how the convention development tax and the tourist bed tax were supposed to benefit convention center construction and tourist development.

Now, Mr. Ross may say “wait a second, I don’t want to impose a cost on my customers. They might not purchase as many tickets or attend as many games. Plus, how can I guarantee the county won’t spend the tax money on other uses that were not contemplated when the tax was created?”

SDM Says: Now you’re getting the point, Mr. Ross.

1 comment

January 28, 2013

No Blinders This Time???

According to a Miami Herald Editorial dated January 27, 2013, the crucial element that makes the Miami Dolphins Owner Stephen Ross’s new stadium roof plan different from the Marlins debacle is that “Ross has offered to open up the team’s ledgers, to the extent possible under NFL rules.”

The still-unwise editorial squad then goes on to justify a give-away of $199 million tax dollars to a private company based on “fairness.” SDM swears this exact word is included in the nonsensical editorial.

Look, if SDM ran the sinking ship known as the Miami Herald, the temptation to kiss the Dolphins’ back side might be too much to resist. SDM suspects the Herald would up and die even sooner without the sports section. But this is no excuse to miss the boat – again – on why public monies should not subsidize wealthy sports franchises.

The real issue at hand here is a term we all remember from Econ 101: opportunity cost. For those of you asleep that day, opportunity cost is the missed opportunity for gain one suffers by making an investment choice. A simple example: SDM can invest in stocks or bonds. One of the investments will pay off at a greater return than the other. If SDM chooses the investment vehicle that pays off at a lower return, then the difference between the return from SDM’s choice vs. the return on the other investment is SDM’s opportunity cost.

The reason the Marlins deal was – and the Dolphins deal, though at much reduced financial exposure level, is – a bad one is because this community’s elected and business leaders failed to investigate the opportunity cost. Just imagine who might have stepped up to the plate – SDM begs your forgiveness for the pun – if the community had placed over a billion dollars and free land on the table for all comers to bid upon. Makes one sick to think about it now…

Thus, the Marlins lesson was not whether their books showed that they needed the money – frankly, the fact that they didn’t need the money argues in favor of loaning them money. The true lesson is that the community – assuming it is foolish enough to subsidize private businesses – should offer the same package of benefits to everyone and then take the best deal on the table.

The Dolphins deal – like the Marlins deal and the Heat deal before it – is objectionable because it pre-cooks the outcome. It’s as if the Dolphins were your pet dog urinating on a tree, thereby claiming it as its own before anyone else has a chance to mark the territory. Instead of a pissing contest, let SDM set out the questions a careful political analysis might ask before giving away such an enormous sum:

Should the Miami bed tax be raised at all? Will raising the tax hurt the yield by driving away business? One should never assume raising a tax will not change purchasing patterns.
If the tax can and should be raised, by what increment should it be increased? Just because the Dolphins need $199 million does not mean that the tax should be raised so as to fund that amount.
Is the Dolphins roof project going to pay a return to the community? The Marlins deal didn’t and it is arguable whether the Heat deal did. Can we take a minute to calculate a rate of return on our money?
In addition to the monetary rate of return, are there other non-monetary returns that justify spending the money on the Dolphins stadium? Government shouldn’t be driven solely by business rates of return, but surely we can ask that all the returns on investment - both monetary and non monetary - be fully quantified, can’t we?
And finally: are there other investments that would return more than the Dolphins’ roof? How do these alternatives compare given the types of returns the community desires?

SDM Says: The greater Miami community has done more than its fair share to subsidize professional sports teams. Fairness to the community dictates taking sufficient time to make a decision that considers any opportunities we may lose if we toss away one set of blinders only to have them replaced by yet another set. You can bet Mr. Ross doesn’t invest his money without calculating the opportunity cost first.

9 comments

January 23, 2013

Quick Bites: SDM Wants a New Roof, Too

Give the Dolphins a New Roof?

The newest public boondoggle to darken the door of county taxpayers comes in the form of a demand/threat from the Miami Dolphins. The gist is that unless the Dolphins get a new roof on their privately-owned stadium, the community will not get to host Super Bowls and other events, which will cost us tax revenue and lost business.

SDM Says: Like the Dolphins, SDM’s house is privately-owned and the taxpayers will not benefit from increased property taxes unless SDM’s abode is improved by a new roof. Also, no local roofers will benefit from SDM’s roofing job, unless county taxpayers foot the bill. So pay for my roof and help the community!

SDM Wonders: How dumb do the Dolphins think the County Commission is? Answer: Just dumb enough.

Don’t Make Our Children Pay

In another example of a politician speaking without grasping the irony of his words, President Obama in his inaugural address’s mention of climate change said that we “would betray our children and future generations” unless we reduce green house gases.

Of course, Mr. Obama feels no such compunction when he proposes and permits budget deficits that increase the public debt of this country by record amounts.

SDM Wonders: Who is it that is really betraying our children and future generations?

Will Scotty’s Landing be Saved After All?

A Miami Herald article yesterday noted that the City of Miami had revised the procurement for the lease on the property occupied by Scotty’s Landing. Apparently, the commission removed a requirement that bidders not owe property taxes as a precondition to bidding.

SDM is no fan of “end justify the means” procurement but the very idea that some chain restaurant would substitute for the quirky Scotty’s Landing makes this particular piece of municipal chicanery tickle SDM’s funny bone. Just imagine all those high-end lobbyists who thought they had eliminated Scotty’s from the picture waking up to find out that they had been hoisted on their own intriguing petards!

SDM Says: Ha!

Space Scientists: Anthropogenic Global Warming is Not Settled Science

Check out this new report by a bunch of retired NASA space scientists that confirms SDM’s contention that “global warming” may be the biggest environmental false alarm in history. Following is a summary of their findings:

1. The science that predicts the extent of Anthropogenic Global Warming is not settled science.

2. There is no convincing physical evidence of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. Most of the alarm regarding AGW results from output of unvalidated computer models. We understand scientific arguments regarding how doubling CO2 in the atmosphere over a hundred years or more (if possible) can have a small direct warming effect, but we question the accuracy of feedback simulations in current models computing climate system responses that amplify CO2 effects. Efforts to estimate climate sensitivity to CO2 based solely on physical data have large uncertainties because many factors affect global temperatures, and CO2 levels rise in the atmosphere after the earth warms due to other factors. While paleoclimate data clearly show CO2 levels rise and fall in the atmosphere hundreds of years after temperature rises and falls due to other causes, the evidence is very weak to support claims of a catastrophic rise in global temperatures caused by CO2 emissions related to human activity.

3. Computer models need to be validated before being used in critical decision-making. Our manned aerospace backgrounds in dealing with models of complex phenomena have convinced us that this rule must be followed to avoid decisions with serious unintended consequences.

4. Because there is no immediate threat of global warming requiring swift corrective action, we have time to study global climate changes and improve our prediction accuracy. While there are many benefits due to some global warming, the major threats appear to be associated with a net loss of Greenland and Antarctica ice sheet mass that would contribute to a gradual sea-level rise. The history, current trends, and specific causes of ice sheet melting and ice accumulation by precipitation must be better understood before determining how best to respond to threats of accelerated sea-level rise.

5. Our US government is over-reacting to concerns about Anthropogenic Global Warming. More CO2 in the atmosphere would be beneficial for forest and crop growth to support the earth’s growing population, so control of CO2 emissions is not an obvious best solution to hyped-up concerns regarding AGW. Eventually the earth will run out of fossil fuels and alternative energy sources will be required. Market forces will (and should) play a big role in this transition to alternative energy sources. Government funding of promising research and development objectives for alternative fuels appears to be a better option at this time than expenditures of enormous resources to limit CO2 emissions.

6. A wider range of solution options should be studied for global warming or cooling threats from any credible cause. CO2 effectiveness in controlling global average temperatures or sea levels has not been established. More reliable and greater control authority may be available from engineering solutions that would accommodate the beneficial aspects of more CO2 in the atmosphere.

2 comments

November 27, 2012

Miami Heat: Business or Game?

One of SDM’s favorite movie lines about professional sports comes from Nick Nolte’s character in North Dallas Forty:

“Every time I say it’s a game, you tell me it’s a business. Every time I say it’s a business, you tell me it’s a game.

That quote raced back into SDM’s pea brain immediately upon reading “Miami Heat asks Miami-Dade County to extend arena lease.”

Let SDM say for the record that this blog loves the Heat. The team is a credit to the city it calls home in just about every way one can imagine.

The problem, as Nick Nolte pointed out, is that sometimes our emotional allegiance to a sports franchise clouds our collective brains when it comes to the business of professional sports. To see how some franchises play on our emotions, one only has to look across 826 to the (spit) Miami Marlins. Oh, how SDM hates that repugnant deal.

Just imagine if, instead of a half-empty baseball stadium, Miami-Dade had a brand-spanking new convention center on that very same spot. It’s heartbreaking to consider the potential alternative uses of a billion dollars, especially given the Marlins behavior since, well, forever.

SDM Says: It’s time for some tough love. Our beloved Heat must be told in no uncertain terms that operating arenas is a business. The community deserves a return on its investment now and that return must be delivered in American Dollars. Sure, we love the game, the players and the team. But it’s high time they love us back in kind.

8 comments

November 15, 2012

PB: Palmer’s Latest News – Positive & Perplexing

SDM sometimes wakes up wondering how the universe functions, especially after reading this momentous article in the Miami Herald:

Court rules Palmetto Bay is not on the hook for Palmer Trinity’s legal fees

By Howard Cohen
The Miami Herald

The Miami-Dade Circuit Court has ruled in favor of Palmetto Bay, which argued it does not have to pay the legal fees connected with its longstanding battle over Palmer Trinity School’s expansion.On Nov. 5 the court denied the school’s request that the village pay its attorney’s fees and costs, which could have totaled more than $300,000.

In July, the school won the right to expand to 1,150 students and, with that victory, filed a motion to collect legal fees.

In August, Palmetto Bay petitioned the Third District Court of Appeal to reconsider its July order that the village pay the school’s attorney’s fees. In September, the appeals court reversed its earlier ruling that the village pay the school’s legal fees. The case went back to the Circuit Court, which ruled in favor of the village.

“It’s over. The appeal is over and hopefully everyone can get back to doing what we do,’’ says Palmetto Bay Village Attorney Eve Boutsis. “The city continues to be a city and Palmer Trinity already has its development order and will do what it has to do and hopefully everyone can move on,” Boutsis said Tuesday afternoon. “This was a great result for the village and it ends this cleanly.” (Emphasis added by SDM.)

[SDM Question: Does this mean the transcripts of the shade sessions will be released now?]

Stan Price, the attorney for Palmer Trinity, commented on Wednesday. “We’re extremely disappointed. We don’t know what you have to do to prove bad faith on behalf of government entities before you can get fees, but we’ll continue with the litigation and hopefully, at the end of the day, we’ll be totally vindicated.”

The village still faces a civil suit filed by the school, which contends it’s owed more than $12 million in lost tuition and other revenue as a result of the suits. The village is fighting those charges.

Palmetto Bay Mayor Shelley Stanczyk has faced criticism from some residents who formed a political action committee to have her recalled next year along with Council Member Joan Lindsay for their decisions to fight the school. The Recall Palmetto Bay group has also worked against re-electing Vice Mayor Brian Pariser, who faces a runoff on Nov. 20.

The group is upset because the three council members continued to lead the fight against Palmer, after the court ruled against the village. The village has spent more than $600,000 in legal fees since the dispute began in 2006.

The recall group used the Third District Court of Appeal’s strongly worded language against the village as ammunition. The appeals court ruled that Palmetto Bay acted with “willful disobedience” regarding previous judicial instructions. The court had also noted the village’s appeals were “an exercise in superfluousness and futility.”

Village supporters strongly disagreed with the unusually harsh language. The battle has divided the village during the recent Nov. 6th elections. Pariser finished a close second and faces challenger John DuBois in the runoff. Council member Howard Tendrich, who disagreed with Pariser, Stanczyk and Lindsay, lost his bid for reelection. His challengers, Tim Schaffer and Jim Araiza, will be in the runoff.

On Tuesday, Stanczyk expressed satisfaction with the latest court decision. The court did not elaborate on its decision, saying only the motion was denied.

“This ruling continues the statement that the village has not acted with willful disobedience and that our actions were not frivolous,” she said.

First off, SDM wants to say bravo to the village’s legal team for protecting the taxpayers from this cost. Having to pay $300,000 to Palmer would have been a blow to the village, though a manageable one. Palmetto Bay’s lawyers lost the case, but won a critical skirmish over fees and costs and Ms. Boutsis deserves praise for achieving this result.

But the result also sparks questions in SDM’s tiny mind. For example, why are Palmer’s legal fees and costs half the amount the village has incurred in defending the lawsuit? If the village’s financial exposure was $300,000, why didn’t someone try to settle the matter before we incurred more than half-a-million in legal fees and costs on our end?

Perhaps more importantly, did it make sense for the village to spend tax dollars and to drag Palmer through all of this torment over a net difference of 250 children spread over more than 50 acres of land? Earlier posts noted that village staff believed Palmer could have added some 2,000 students based on the code. (Staff essentially talked them down to their 1,150 recommendation.) Was this result worth all the time and money spent by the village on this lawsuit?

SDM also wonders why the village elders and legal counsel never discussed the dimensions of the village’s financial exposure with residents. With all due respect, the calls for settlement that have emanated from SDM and the Palmetto Bay News for at least 18 months appear well-founded. While the village attorney deserves kudos for this victory, her obsession with keeping the rest of us in the dark looks to have extended this lawsuit. Inevitably SDM must ask: who benefits when a lawsuit drags on?

Finally, SDM wonders how the Mayor can be so clueless. Seriously, does she not understand that the village lost the lawsuit? That the court said specifically that the village’s behavior in the Palmer litigation amounted to “willful disobedience of the court’s instructions”? [Read more at Palmer Litigation: An Exercise in Superfluousness and Futility.] Frankly, SDM cannot figure out why the village lets her speak to reporters.

SDM Wonders: How does Ms. Boutsis conclude that “[t]his was a great result for the village and it ends this cleanly” given the following:

The village lost the underlying suit and spent a small fortune defending its position.
Palmetto Bay was slapped with a humiliating and harshly worded order questioning the village’s motives. (Judges are human, too, they talk about cases to one another. SDM cannot see how this case was good for Palmetto Bay’s reputation.)
One of the village’s most important institutions (and one of its largest employers, too) has been unable to expand for a minimum of four years. (How many kids missed out on a Palmer education, Mme. “Education” Mayor?)
Palmer still has a lawsuit pending on damages.
A once tranquil village finds itself divided.

SDM Says: This not so great and not so clean “victory” rings a little hollow. Do the candidates for Vice Mayor and District 2 agree with Ms. Boutsis?

4 comments

November 14, 2012

PB: Pariser only wanted half a village

One of the advantages of age is that you tend to recall things that some folks would like to forget. For instance, do all of you who live South of SW 168th Street know that Vice Mayor Pariser never wanted you to be part of Palmetto Bay? Yes, that includes all of you CCOCI folks, too.

Oh, you don’t believe SDM? Look at this article from the Miami Herald dated March 23, 1995:

NEIGHBORHOODS SEEK STUDY ON INCORPORATION GROUP EAST OF U.S. 1 SEEKS FACTS

OSCAR MUSIBAY Herald Staff Writer

Prompted by efforts of other Dade neighborhoods to incorporate, some residents living east of U.S. 1 between Southwest 136th and 168th streets want a study of how much it costs them to be a part of Metro government.

Residents of East Grove Estates and five other neighborhoods are circulating a petition asking Dade County to compare taxes paid by residents within the area to money spent for Metro services. The area is mainly made of single-family homes.

“It doesn’t necessarily mean we want to incorporate, but we want to know the facts,” said Brian Pariser, president of the East Grove Estates Homeowners Association. “We don’t want to be left out of something, nor do we want people to be makers of our fate.”

The coalition of residents will have a town meeting at 7:30 p.m. Monday at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church Parish Hall, 14260 Old Cutler Rd., to discuss the issue.

Pariser’s group wants the county to provide a feasibility study of about 20,000 people who live between Southwest 136th Street on the north, 168th Street on the south, Biscayne Bay on the east and South Dixie Highway on the west.

Areas to the north and south of East Grove Estates already are investigating incorporation.

In November, residents of Perrine and Cutler Ridge to the south formed a steering committee to report on whether Perrine, Cutler Ridge and Saga Bay could support their own government.

Pariser said the study area is too wide and would thin resources.

To the north, the Pinecrest/Palmetto area also is meeting to assess its chances as a municipality.

If anyone thinks SDM is overstating Mr. Pariser’s position, why not ask some of the key founders who are still around? Eyewitnesses are invited to comment on this post. Tell SDM how this blog’s version of events is wrong.

SDM Wonders: Why did Mr. Pariser want to cut-off the village boundary at SW 168th Street? SDM heard rumors for years it was because Pariser and his neighbors thought the southern neighborhoods weren’t compatible with the northern ones. (Not compatible is a code word for some other very unkind terms.)

Fortunately, the narrow-minded Mr. Pariser was overruled by the wise founders who argued pragmatically that a city of the size Pariser imagined could not support itself.

SDM Says: If one wonders about the roots of Mr. Pariser’s divisive tenure on the council, one should start at the beginning when his words were unguarded.

14 comments

October 26, 2012

PB: Pariser’s Figures

There is an old saw that says something like “figures lie and liars figure.” The aphorism came into SDM’s mind after contemplating the following attribution to Vice Mayor Pariser in the Miami Herald:

Pariser’s goal is to champion homeowners, he said, noting that 92 percent of the tax base in Palmetto Bay comes from residential property. (Emphasis added by SDM.

For Mr. Pariser to be correct, the term “tax base” must be defined as the total value of every plot of real property in the village. By this measure, it may be true that 92% of that value is derived from residential properties.

But, how relevant is this statistic? Not very.

You see, all real property is taxed ad valorem (on value). According to the village budget, all ad valorem property taxes taken together amount to 41% of Palmetto Bay’s revenues.

SDM agrees that it makes sense for a politician to concern himself with the well-being of a revenue source that represents 38% (92% of 41%) of village revenue and 100% of village voters.

But doesn’t it also make good conservative business sense for a politician to concern himself with the rest of the revenue picture?

SDM thinks so, and by inference, so does village staff. Palmetto Bay’s Finance Director, Desmond Chin, presented at the beginning of this week’s zoning hearing and his words make SDM’s point ( 2:50):

The fourth quarter budget to actual income report consists of revenues and expenditures for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2012.

The village has collected $13.4 million in revenues, which is 106.43% of the adopted budget. The operating expenditures are $11.8 million or 93.47% of the adopted budget. This resulted in a fiscal year surplus from operations in the amount of $1.6 million.

The surplus resulted from $812,000 in excess revenues and $824,000 in reduction in expenditures. The operating revenues exceeded nearly all areas of revenue sources.

Ad valorem is the only area of significance that did not exceed the budget. But the 98.2% collection [rate] is within the expected norm when compared to prior years. …

When these fourth quarter amounts are included in the adopted budget, I expect the ending fund balance for fiscal year 2013 to be approximately $10.1 million.

(Emphasis added by SDM.)

SDM Note: Later in the meeting, Mr. Chin stated that the published fund balance was $8.6 million. SDM checked the budget and found that FY11-12 published unassigned fund balance was $9.6 million. (See Village of Palmetto Bay ADOPTED OPERATING & CAPITAL BUDGET: FISCAL YEAR 2012-13 at p. 40.) (LARGE FILE) SDM believes the missing million dollars was the money used for the new police officers and other stuff the council added at the budget hearings.

SDM Code Breaker: The actual numbers reflect that Palmetto Bay collected (net) about $812,000 more in revenues than they announced a month or so ago. SDM says “net” because ad valorem revenue from property taxes was about $98,000 below the budgeted amount. This would seem to mean that a combination of other revenues* brought in about $900,000 more than expected.

*Franchise Fees, Utility Taxes, Licenses and Permits, Intergovernmental Revenue, Fines and Forfeitures, Charges for Services, Interest Income and Other.

To its credit, the village staff under the council’s direction spent $824,000 less than they anticipated. Certainly, abandoning Mayor Stanczyk’s wedding-venue-at-Thalatta-fiasco must count for a big chunk of that savings, though SDM invites correction on this point.

Now, you’re thinking “SDM, what does all of this mean? Numbers hurt my brain.”

SDM Code Breaker No. 2:

The village’s fund balance is higher by about $500,000 over the published budget figure. The $1.6 million surplus may be accurate but the way it was presented at the meeting could be misleading to residents.
Palmetto Bay picked up almost a million bucks in unanticipated revenue for which no elected official can claim any credit whatsoever. Don’t let village pols tell you otherwise.
Residential properties are important to Palmetto Bay’s finances, though Mr. Pariser’s “92%” figure overstates the impact by almost three times.
Pariser figures.

SDM Says:Vote for someone else.