According to a recent poll, many people think our county firefighters do a better job than the mayor.
A survey of 450 voters who were called live from Aug. 2 to Aug. 5, voters gave our first responders more than twice as many approval points as Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos “Not So Golden Boy” Gimenez.
Almost 80 percent of the voters called said that the service we receive from Miami-Dade Fire Rescue is either excellent or good. Meanwhile, only 30 percent of them gave Gimenez — whose budget plan calls for the shutting down of fire units and firing of 80 firefighters now, down from an original 149 — a rating on his job performance of excellent or good. And that was 5 and 25 percent, respectively.
In fact, more people think he’s doing a so-so or poor job, with 23 and 18 percent, repsectively.
Additionally, the survey found that almost 80 percent of the voters in Miami-Dade County consider Fire Rescue an important priority in the budget and more than 80 percent would not want to see budget cuts that would reduce the level of service.
“The poll disproves this notion that people are okay with cuts to their fire service,” said Rowan Taylor, president of the county firefighters’ union, which commissioned the survey.
But even though there’s an interested party behind it, this live poll’s results seem solid because Emiliano Antunez, who is getting better and better at polling, not only provided the final tallies, he also provided the methodology and questions and even the phone numbers of the respondents, with their answers on each question, so anyone who doubts the figures can follow up and confirm.
There is a 4 point margin of error, which is nothing with the whopping figures we have here.
“It also shows that the community is not solid on his job approval, or unsure about his leadership. I think it has to do with the switcheroo, the back and forth,” Taylor said, referring to the mayor’s back flip on the budget from a small but “necessary” increase to preserve current service levels to a zero increase that forces cuts.
“He doesn’t seem to be a steady leader. They are unsure if he can really lead.”
The survey was also used to inform voters about a $9 million kickback to the county that firefighters could use to shore up the shortfall, which is now at about $7 million. The Fire Rescue Department itself identified savings by selling a property that they were going to build a station on and moving around or consolidating functions.
Firefighters gave $4.5 million in 2009 and $4.5 or $4.6 million in 2010 from its limited tax revenues — because that’s all they use, folks, taxes — back to the county to beef up the emergency reserve fund, so that we could get better bond rating to borrow more money and get better rates (more on that later).
Asked if they thought that Miami-Dade should repay that $9 mil that it “borrowed” from the fire department, which has its own tax millage and budget, more than 70 percent of the voters polled said yes.
If the mayor is really listening to the people, as he says he was when he went from a small tax increase to no increase at all, maybe he should listen to this poll, as well as the earful he is getting at the budget town hall meetings that are like the cart before the horse.
Either Ladra or the firefighters can provide him with the call list so that he can talk to the respondents himself and maybe even ask them why they gave him such low ratings.
In fact, call those first.
Poll: Firefighters get higher points than county mayor added by Ladra on
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