Commissioner Sally Heyman says that Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez is dragging his feet
intentionally on installing red light cameras on some of the county’s most dangerous intersections.
The county’s Municipal Services Committee voted Wednesday to reject all five of the bids received for the implementation of 150 cameras — in phases of 50 at a time — after a county attorney told them that too much time had elapsed and that state law had changed and affected the language on the request for proposals that the contractors bid on.
But Heyman doesn’t believe that. She says it’s just a ruse by the mayor to further delay something that the commission has directed the administration to take care of on three separate occasions.
“The court said it wasn’t an issue for Miami-Dade County,” said a frustrated Heyman, who first sponsored the resolution in 2011 with then Commission Chairman Joe Martinez.
“I got a ruling from Tallahassee that they didn’t have a problem with Miami-Dade County’s RFP,” Heyman said. “As a matter of fact, Tallahassee was looking to conform to our county [ordinance] because there was a problem with some cities that were doing it to get money.”
Read related story: Miami-Dade red light cameras coming at high speed now
The Third District Court of Appeals decision was about the city of Hollywood which delegated police power to a third party contractor who screened the photographs to determine if a traffic infraction had occurred. At the county, a police department employee would be the one doing that.
The county policy and ordinance does not abdicate authority to a third party firm for enforcement, which was the main issue in court. County cameras, she said, do not ticket for rolling stops or right turns on red, another controversial point.
“We actually worked it out to have law enforcement and FDOT 
pick the most dangerous intersections and we had validity,” Heyman said, adding that the process was taking unnecessary time.
First, the mayor “stepped back because his son was a lobbyist for one of them,” she said, referring to the mayor recusing himself from the process because, at the time, CJ Gimenez worked for the law firm that represented one of the red light camera companies.
Wednesday’s recommendation came from Deputy Mayor Russell Benford.
“Then it got stalled and got back to us again to go to RFP because it was at the direction of the commission. There were county roads where we didn’t want to abdicate our authority or rule and the cities wanted to step in,” Heyman said, and then seemed to direct her comments directly to the mayor.
The RFP went out in December of 2013.
“You didn’t want to do it in spite of this legislative body telling you to do it, in spite of Tallahassee telling us they had no problem with our language… and the fourth DCA saying the argument wasn’t an issue for our ordinance,” Heyman said at the meeting.
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The mayor’s administration basically stalled, the commissioner said, until time elapsed and the recommendation would come that all the proposals be rejected with no prejudice to the proposers, which means they can propose again.
“That’s nice but for some of them that are nationwide and asked if they were willing to come back, one of them said no for the costs, the delay… It’s been three years that they got jerked around,” she said, adding that firms spent tens of thousands to produce the proposals.
“Either we make legislative decisions and you do it with the administration — 
and I am playing to his ear — or you don’t,” she said, referring to Gimenez. “If you don’t want to do it, then you don’t do it. But don’t say ‘Come to Dade County and do business with us.’
“Either we legislate or we don’t. But when we do something, you don’t mess around to the point where you get what you ultimately want instead of this democratic body,” she said. “It’s just how disrespectful this has been.”
Reached after the meeting, Heyman confirmed to Ladra that she was talking about the mayor.
“He made it clear he doesn’t like the cameras,” Heyman told me. “He is strong mayor, but we are legislators, so as a body, when we pass a resolution or direct him to do something, even if he doesn’t like it, he still has to do it.
“It’s like a parent-child relationship. He doesn’t have to like what we say. But he has to respect it.”
The mayor’s spokesman, Mike Hernandez, declined Ladra’s request for a response to the public spanking.
“We won’t be commenting,” Hernandez texted me, because I guess they don’t think they have to answer to anyone.
But Heyman said that if Gimenez never intended on following through, he should have said it sooner, she said.
“You don’t let a business go through all the costs only to say ‘nevermind.’ That’s not good policy. That’s not good practice.”
Heyman said she read the decision from the courts that affected the red light camera policies and ordinances in some cities.
“Don’t give me excuses that are not valid. I’m an attorney. I can read a decision. The issue was about local governments giving the company the responsibility without law enforcement being involved,” she said. “Those were never our issues. I wrote the ordinance the way I wrote it because I objected to how the state of Florida guidelines were generic and vague.”
For months, she’s been asking where the bids are. And for months, she’s been stalled, she said.
“It has dragged and dragged. Now they say it’s so old, we have to reject it.”
Hmmmm… how convenient.
Sally Heyman spanks Mayor Gimenez on red light cameras added by Ladra on
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