Courthouse tax debate: Scare tactics vs. common sense

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Martinez said a 2008 master plan already deemed the building as obsolete and called for construction of a new one by this year. He says we are on track. So how come we didn’t hear about it until it became an emergency? If we were on track, why wasn’t there ballot language written for this in the higher turnout 2012 election? How come ballot language for the referendum had to be approved in a rush at its first hearing because we would pass the deadline to get it on Nov. 4?

Is this what you call on track? And you want to build a $370 million courthouse?

That 2008 master plan, by the way, is already six years old. How do we know it is still the best plan moving forward, considering all the other changes happening around us?

Read related story: Courthouse bond ‘blank check’ is an injustice to voters

Faced with these relevant questions, Martinez retreated to the scare tactics — health and safety hazards — that have become the hallmark of this campaign.

The need for a new courthouse “has become much more compelling because of the discovery of very serious safety and hazardous conditions,” Martinez told Putney and Glenna Milberg. “It isn’t just the structural problems with the beams, that 92 percent of the beams are corroded, sitting in pools of water. But they also have discovered black mold throughout the building and friable asbestos.

“In 2008, we didn’t know the building had asbestos, friable asbestos, dangerous asbestos,” Martinez said, repeating that word three times like a drum beat. “We didn’t know the building has black mold.

“You have a situation where you have a very dangerous structure used by the public on a daily basis,” he said, estimating the traffic at a good 3,000 a day.

I imagine hundreds of them are litigant-happy attorneys. Ladra can smell the lawsuits coming? How come we don’t have a bunch already? And how come, if the situation is so critical as to have — dum, dum, dummmm, “friable asbestos” — which, by the way, is asbestos stuck in the pipe lining or insulation or ceiling or floor tiles that could at some point, maybe, become airborne if the pipe or tile is crumpled or disturbed but is better left alone until then — why on Earth hasn’t the building been evacuated?

Said Regalado: “If it were a school building, I would make sure it was shut down.”

Maybe because the asbestos is under control. Internal Services Director Lester Sola told Ladra that a report from July identified the asbestos. He also said it was not the only building with asbestos and that the county has an asbestos remediation program that it is following which calls for action only when asbestos is disturbed and only then can become a danger to the humans around it.

“It’s just not safe,” Martinez said breathlessly on TV to thousands of viewers. That’s just not responsible. Because Lester Sola said there is no immediate health hazard.

“Asbestos is present in all our old buildings,” Sola told Ladra. “As long as it’s undisturbed, it is not a problem. For many years we’ve been remediating the asbestos, but you really only address it if you’re going to replace something with asbestos, like the tiles.”

Sola also said that there was $100,000 earmarked for asbestos remediation this year and that the courthouse is in the middle of a $30 million overhaul that will take care of the humidity problem that causes the mold. Hence the scaffolding. The project is about 30% done. “That will seal the building and it is the biggest step in getting the humidity out of the building.”

But you don’t see that being talked about by the people claiming to want to save Cielito Lindo.

Read related story: Miami Dade: Trust us with $400 mil for new courthouse

Commissioner Juan Zapata wants to do something real. He has legislation that will go before the commission, possibly next week after the referendum dies an ugly death (yes, I am predicting already), asking to make an immediate evaluation and determine if the building has to be evacuated. Immediately.

If half of what the people pushing for this referendum are saying is true, it is inconceivable that we haven’t acted yet.

It would also call for $75 million available from the 2004 Building Better Communities bond — yes, available from the 2004 bond — to go to the immediate repairs of the health and structural hazards in the building.

Gee, that seems like a better idea than rushing to a $400 million tax for a new building somewhere downtown to look like something but big.

Said Regalado: “The money to fix that courthouse was allocated but for five years the county had not started that work. Why do we have all these documents that prove that the county was responsible for this negligence. instead of holding them responsible, we go to the taxpayers?”

She has also said that there are communities interested in being part of the conversation — Doral was specifically mentioned — because taxpayers in the western and southern and northern reaches of the county may not want to have to schlep all the way downtown and pay $20 parking to get justice.

“What we’re doing in Miami-Dade County is not working and we need to course correct,” Regalado said.

Yeah, but you could say that about a lot of things in this county, not just this courthouse issue.

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  bond referendum, Miami-Dade Courthouse, Raquel Regalado