Coconut Grove residents beg no-show mayor to veto redistricting map
¿Donde esta Francis Suarez?
Miami just went through a painful redistricting that has Coconut Grove up in arms and Suarez is silent. The new police chief was appointed without a word from the mayor who last year recruited the Beyonce of police chiefs. Community Redevelopment Agencies change hands, investigations are investigated and department heads drop off like flies and Suarez — elected with basically zero opposition last year — is oblivious.
The celebrity mayor is too busy raising money for the Republican Party, building his national profile now as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and basking in his name being floated as a potential VP or future guv. Ladra was told about a survey weeks ago to gauge how Baby X would do against Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava in a countywide race in 2024 — but that’s small potatoes for Mayor VIP (Very Important Postalita).
He needs something with more TV time.
To his credit, Suarez came up with $5 million for rental assistance in the post-pandemic housing crisis. But that’s only because he feels guilty about losing so many people so much money in the Miami Bitcoin crash. And it’s non-recurring, so it doesn’t really solve anything. It’s a popular handout. And also, it’s not his money.
Maybe he’s afraid of leaving his notes behind again, like he did at the press conference after former Police Chief Art Acevedo was fired. The very carefully prepared talking points showed that Suarez can’t even be there when he’s there. Not really. Not even for press conferences.
Read related: Mayor Francis Suarez leaves his cheat notes on Art Acevedo at press podium
Maybe he’s been too busy courting tech boys from California who then donate hundreds of thousands to his political action committee. Suarez is making a name for himself in the crypto universe and is one of the panelists at this weekend’s NFT festival at Mana Wynwood.
But if it isn’t about tech (read: money) — or his eyebrow maintenance — Suarez doesn’t care. This is the same guy who once wanted to be strong mayor. Now he doesn’t bother to show up.
Brilla por su ausencia.
The term-limited Suarez is only using his position in Miami to help propel him to the next big thing (read: raise more PAC money). It is so obvious, and he is so comfortable with the “arrangement,” that he took his fundraiser, Brian Goldmeier, to the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Winter Leadership Meeting in Washington, D.C., even though Goldmeier had no business being there. Unless he did have business being there. Which is the problem. Goldmeier, who has raised $6 million for Baby X and gotten almost $1 million for himself, had a badge that identified him as a city official, as seen in the photo he tweeted.
Ladra bets Suarez shows his face next month when (read: if) the commission considers the Miami Freedom Park he lobbied for so hard in 2018. Unless it’s deferred again, because it’s still not ready because they haven’t made a good offer because it is being negotiated by a city manager with one foot out the door and a new job with the other side.
Suarez also has until Sunday — or is it Monday? — to veto the redistricting map that was passed last week needlessly dividing the Grove into three districts and curiously stretching District 3 just enough to include Commissioner Joe Carollo‘s $2.2 million house. Baby X is being asked to veto the 3-2 vote that approved the map — commissioners Manolo Reyes and Ken Russell both said no — on March 24. He has 10 days from then.
A veto can only be overturn by a 4/5th vote.
Read related: Miami Mayor Francis Suarez wants $5 mil set aside for rental assistance
“Our collective voice on things like Neighborhood Conservation Districts (NCD 2 and NCD 3) and zoning issues will now be diluted and made infinitely more difficult by having to interact with three commissioners instead of one,” reads a post signed by 10 longtime and active Grove residents on the Coconut Grove Spotlight blog. “Grove residents held off this kind of gerrymandering for 97 years successfully, only to lose last week.”
The post was published with this editorial cartoon.
The authors — who include activists Barbara Lange and Anthony “Andy” Parrish, a member of the city’s planning and zoning board — said the redistricting meeting last Thursday “was a complete sham” and ignored the will of more than 2,200 residents who signed petitions and hundreds of them who went to at least four public meetings to oppose the splintering of the Grove.
“The ‘public input’ was mere cover for a plan baked in well in advance that served to benefit four commissioners directly and to ignore the will of the people. The Grove loses,” the post says, like they’re new to the city.
“Aside from this, the public meetings were a disgraceful circus of shaming public input and crazy rants by Commissioners Carollo and [Alex] Diaz de la Portilla…”
Yep. New.
Read related: Joe Carollo votes to keep his house — and other Miami redistricting madness
“What an irony it is to live in a city where Cuban immigrants fled here 60 years ago to avoid an autocratic government that ignored the will of the people, only to have to endure the same kind of tone-deaf leadership today.”
And they expect the mayor not to be tone-deaf?
These good-minded people think that a rally at City Hall is going to get the mayor’s attention.
He can’t veto the map because then he loses the votes he needs from either Diaz de la Portillo or Carollo or both to pass the Miami Freedom Park lease next month (or whenever).
And when was the last time anyone saw the mayor at City Hall, anyway? Suarez hasn’t even been to a commission meeting since… well, Ladra can’t even remember. Maybe since Carollo used to put the mayor’s salary and taxpayer-paid security detail on every single agenda.
And why has Carollo stopped wanting to discuss those things? They are legitimate questions made only more pressing by the mayor’s absence.
Francis Suarez is the absent Mayor VIP of Miami — MIA at the worst time added by Ladra on
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