Ladra hopes Miami-Dade Commissioners packed a lunch and a snack for what looks like a marathon 
meeting Tuesday that brings back several controversial issues — including transgender rights, the $65 million consolation prize to Oderbrecht for taking away their Airport City hotel, body cameras for cops, the crumbling civil courthouse and millions of dollars in gifted grants to private entities who are trying to drink from the taxpayer trough.
Among the items the Miami-Dade Commissioners will consider today are a study for the incorporation of Fountainebleau Park area, a proposed prohibition for lobbyists to serve on the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority, awarding a $600,000 contract to the Humane Society of Greater Miami for a spay and neuter program and their first look at the 10-year countywide transit development plan.
Commissioner Sally Heyman will bring a resolution to ask the mayor to study the body cameras that he wants for police officers and to bring the future expense of such a program to the commission before spending a dime. Commissioner Bruno Barreiro wants to ask the mayor to prepare a report and plan for the use, development and maintenance of county-owned property in Downtown Miami.
Read related story: Commissioner Juan Zapata: Close courthouse if there’s a risk
Commissioner Juan Zapata got four of his colleagues to c
o-sponsor his motion to have the structural and environmental health of the historic civil courthouse on Flagler Street — the one lawyers and judges failed to tax us $400 million to move out of — and close it down if necessary.
But that’s the easy peasy stuff.
Odebrecht USA may not have the super majority vote it needs to pull off a waiver of the bidding process and land a $65 million contract at Miami International Airport that everybody says is a consolation prize for getting the Airport City rug pulled from under their feet.
And Commission Chambers will be packed with conservatives and religious fanatics who want to thwart efforts to add transgender identity and expression to the human rights ordinance, protecting transgender individuals from discrimination. It was a hot topic last month in committee and promises to be again today as many religious organizations and churches have called upon their members to flood County Hall. Let’s hope the commission as a whole has the courage to stand up against this hysterical bullying.
Read related story: Human rights transgender debate becomes bathroom joke
That may take up more time than even the ka-ching items, which are several “waivers of administrative rules” to dole out grants or disbursements or allocations from the Building Better Communities bond fund which are not minimum $10 million grants for game changers of regional impact. These applications have caused a stir already and have now been described — each and every one of them — as “game changers” for the economy and society.
But the two big ones that were spurned at the last meeting — Skyrise Miami and $5 million for rich developer Wayne Rosen‘s charter school in Palmetto Bay — are not back on the agenda. Skyrise will be asking for a zoning variance to have temporary staging barges for the next four years.
The items that are up for grant consideration today are new, different, and they have been spread around throughout the agenda so they don’t look like one big kick in the taxpayers’ collective, um, wallet.
There is a $7.5 million to Neuroscience Centers of Florida Foundation to fund Project Mercy, a world-class ambulatory care center that caters to the 
needs of local patients with Multiple Sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and who have suffered a stroke. Proponents claim it will create 316 jobs — half temporary and half permanent.
Another $6 million will be requested for Overtown Gateway Partners to fund the Overtown Gateway Project, a $293-million mixed use housing/entertainment/retail complex that aims to create 423 jobs with an average salary of $42,000 in the historic part of the neighborhood.
A grant for $5 million will be requested for Larkin Health Science Education Campus by Commissioner Dennis Moss.
And there are pages and pages of more minutia stuff so, even though they can carry some items over to Thursday, the commissioners may at some point pray that the day goes by more quickly.
And maybe they’re appealing to a higher power already: There’s also a resolution sponsored by Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz and co-sponsored by a whole half of his colleagues (read: it will pass) to put the words “In God We Trust” behind the dais where the commissioners sit.
I know. It seems sacrilegious to Ladra, too.
Busy county commission considers courthouse, cameras, gifts added by Ladra on
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Rebecca Sosa is the Sell-Out of the Commissioner.
The County can’t give money away to all sorts of things that are not necesary fast enough. Yet they plan to eliminate the deputies of the Finance Dept. Their combined salaries (for 13 of them) is $700k, yet they produce over $7 million in revenue anually. The powers-that-be say that in the name of “efficiency” these hard working deputies have to be eliminated…lives affected.
But we need to give away $5mil for a grant, $600k to “study” incorporating another part of the county (creating another layer of beaurocracy) and countless other useless endeavors…
Sarah, you just listed 50-some ways of saying the same thing. Look at your own list MTF is the same as male to female. Many terms are describing the same TWO expressions. Androgynous and androgyne are the same thing. Are you telling me androgynous people need their own restroom? Thank you for again proving my point about your hysterical position based in fear, not fact.
Dr. Meissner, what kind of doctor are you? Are you talking about discrimination of those who discriminate? Did that stop us from enacting laws that protect people on the basis of race and ethnic orientation? You want the racists and the sexists protected? I am not sure I understand.
This ordinance would protect people AGAINST discrimination and, yeah, maybe the haters might feel a little discrimination going toward them. You know what I call that? Bonus.
Love, Ladra
Using gender in public bathrooms to identify a “perverted culprit” is not reliable. It’s behavior, only behavior. Whether you have an overly aggressive male or female – if their intent is to harm – it doesn’t matter the gender or the place. Match up statistics on who are rapists and where they hunt. It’s never the guy in a dress and heels.
Rules should have a focus on other people, rather than the narrow focus of our own self-interests that we find so prevalent today. Understanding and respecting the differences of others is a small sacrifice that we should all be willing to make for the good of all and the sake of living together.
Mahalo
Ladra, with all due respect, your response to Ms. Ehud is lamer than lame. What’s happened to you? Your ignorance on this issue is appalling.
Yes, as you write, “penalizing discrimination has a deep, legally justified history.” But this ordinance does not penalize discrimination, it LEGALIZES it!
And that’s whole problem with it. Please get your facts straight. There are many of us out here that enjoy your blog and admire you greatly.
Will the ordinance pass? Probably. There’s alot of corrupt commissioners on our Board of County Commissioners. Corruption, cheap politicking and ignorance are the staple of the day in Miami-Dade.
Yes, Ladra, facts are stubborn things. But you are truly hysterical when you claim you “always use the facts” for your “subjective and admittedly biased” rants….
Get the facts before you speak, honey. Here are the more than 50 custom gender “identities and expressions” for those who don’t identify simply as “male” or “female.”
And please note that it’s possible that the list below is not complete.
Agender
Androgyne
Androgynous
Bigender
Cis
Cisgender
Cis Female
Cis Male
Cis Man
Cis Woman
Cisgender Female
Cisgender Male
Cisgender Man
Cisgender Woman
Female to Male
FTM
Gender Fluid
Gender Nonconforming
Gender Questioning
Gender Variant
Genderqueer
Intersex
Male to Female
MTF
Neither
Neutrois
Non-binary
Other
Pangender
Trans
Trans*
Trans Female
Trans* Female
Trans Male
Trans* Male
Trans Man
Trans* Man
Trans Person
Trans* Person
Trans Woman
Trans* Woman
Transfeminine
Transgender
Transgender Female
Transgender Male
Transgender Man
Transgender Person
Transgender Woman
Transmasculine
Transsexual
Transsexual Female
Transsexual Male
Transsexual Man
Transsexual Person
Transsexual Woman
Two-Spirit
READ: Confused by All the New Facebook Genders? Here’s What They Mean.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/02/21/gender_facebook_now_has_56_categories_to_choose_from_including_cisgender.html
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/02/13/facebook_custom_gender_options_here_are_all_56_custom_options.html
Shalom!
This evidence of hysterical bullying brought to you this morning by Sarah Ehud. [Polite applause] Why, you ask? Well, because each of her “reasoned arguments” is as bogus as she claims the amendment is.
First: What 56? We’re talking about two. Men who express themselves as women are already using the ladies room and women who express themselves as men are already using the men’s room. Period. Get over it. They are not looking at you.
Second: Penalizing discrimination has a deep, legally justified history. Think civil rights movement. Or women’s suffrage.
Third: Local need was demonstrated at the last meeting (weren’t you paying attention?) when an employee from the county’s own fair housing department said that there were five transgender complaints AND that these cases are hard to move on because the criteria that exists in the human rights ordinance now does not always apply, which is why the amendment is needed.
Facts are stubborn things. They are not pliable to your needs. Ladra always uses facts for her subjective and admittedly biased, but informative, rants. There is no preaching here. Just my analysis that this amendment is, at best, necessary, and at worst, harmless. Despite the screeching, hate-fueled ignorance of detractors, it will pass.
Oh, and I should have said ultra conservatives.
Love, Ladra
This is why I love Miami Dade!
Shame on you Ladra for insulting your readers by calling the reasoned opposition to the so-called “transgender” ordinance “hysterical bullying.”
Insults are the arguments of those that have no arguments.
In case you don’t know, here are just a few of the numerous reasoned arguments levelled against this ordinance by those you label “conservatives”:
FIRST: By allowing absolutely anyone alleging to be acting upon any of the 56 identified, self-perceived, so-called “gender identities or expressions” to use any public bathroom, locker room, dressing room or shower they want, the ordinance endangers public safety and violates constitutional rights to privacy.
SECOND: By penalizing anyone who disagrees with anyone else’s 56 identified, self-perceived, so-called “gender identities or expressions,” this ordinance imposes inequality, legalizes discrimination, and violates constitutional equal protection and due process rights.
And THIRD: To impose this ordinance without a demonstrated local need and against the public interest is pandering to special interest at its worst; it’s an abuse of power, an act of public corruption, and an attack on democratic government and the Rule of Law.
Lastly, the proposed ordinance’s arguments are completely bogus. For example, ordinance partisans allege that so-called “transsexual” discrimination is “pervasive” and “serious”, yet they could not name a single company or government entity that discriminates in this category.
According to a Special Investigative Report issued this earlier year by the U.S. Hispanic Publishers Federation, not a single discrimination complaint has ever been filed in Florida with the exception of Broward County where six “gender identity or expression” complaints were filed and not a single one was found to be valid.
Furthermore, ordinance partisans claim that discriminated “transsexuals” have nowhere to turn to file a complaint. This, too, is false. Under the Fair Housing Act, the EEOC and HUD have been accepting “gender identity or expression” discrimination complaints for quite some time. Check it out.
I could go on! So please, Ladra, practice the tolerance and respect you preach. Why display ignorance when you can be objective and learned. Find out why the vast majority of Miami-Dade resident oppose this unwarranted, unjust, discriminatory and yes, insane, ordinance before you attack, or bark even!
Shalom!