About three dozen activists and residents from Coconut Grove milled about the grassy patch in front of Miami City Hall Thursday morning in the heat — for nada.
The residents — most of the same people who went to speak against the cutting up of the Grove at every redistricting meeting — want to convince Mayor Francis Suarez to veto the map that cuts the historic neighborhood into three districts and was approved 3-2 last week.
Fat chance of that. The mayor, who has been totally absent during the whole redistricting process (what else is new?), wasn’t there (what else is new?).
Anyway, Suarez wants to turn Melreese Golf Course into a mega real estate complex with a soccer stadium in it. What does this have to do with the new district boundaries. Well, the lease, which could come up next month if ready (read: probably not), can only be approved with an aye from four of the five commissioners, because it’s on public land. That means the mayor needs everyone else because Manolo Reyes has already vowed to vote against it forever. Suarez can’t afford to alienate Commissioners Joe Carollo and Alex Diaz de la Portilla.
Read related: Francis Suarez is the absent Mayor VIP of Miami — MIA at the worst time
Ladra would venture to say Baby X is scared of Loco Joe.
One might think that Suarez can’t afford to alienate Commissioner Ken Russell, either. The mayor needs every other vote but Reyes’, right? But Russell has really only harped about replacing green space and could sell out if his legacy Baywalk Greenway gets funded by the Miami Freedom Park developers.
Russell stopped by City Hall Thursday morning to talk to some of his constituents. They didn’t tell him to his face that they thought he didn’t fight hard enough. They did put it on an editorial cartoon, however.
It seems that even the residents at the rally realized the effort was a long shot. It’s just the next natural step to take before going to court. Mel Meinhardt, the main organizer of the One Grove movement, said the group is working on all three branches of the local government.
They already went to the legislative branch — hundreds of speakers over the course of four or five public meetings appealed to the legislators, the commissioners. They were ignored. So, that didn’t work.
“Now, we try to get the executive branch to listen to us,” Meinhardt told Political Cortadito.
The “executive branch” wasn’t there, however. Ladra told Meinhardt and other activists they should protest outside the NFT Miami event this weekend in Wynwood if they want to get the mayor’s attention. Suarez is giving the welcome speech at 1:30 p.m. Friday.
Read related: NAACP, Coconut Grove residents ask Miami mayor to veto redistricting map
It’s possible that City Attorney Victoria “Tricky Vicky” Mendez is going to come up with some excuse, as she’s done before, why Suarez can’t veto this action. She hasn’t returned several emails asking about it. But according to the city charter, he can veto any resolution, ordinance, motion and even a budget line item. He can veto this.
Meinhardt said that, instead of cutting up the Grove, the city needs to look at all the districts and try to unify the neighborhoods that have been divided in earlier maps, which are redrawn every 10 years to adjust to population growth. Areas like Flagami and Shenandoah, said Meinhardt, who became an activist along with a pre-elected Marc Sarnoff with the whole Home Depot debacle in 2004.
This is a lost opportunity to not just keep the Grove whole, he said, but make other neighborhoods whole — one of the points of contention with The Three Amigos, who say the Grove isn’t special.
“This can be a big win,” said Meinhardt, who is also very optimistic an`d non-confrontational when he goes before the commission. “The face of Miami is changing.”
The truth is the Miami commission should have created more districts. That’s a given. But we are past that point. The commissioners are not interested in diluting their power or opportunity for fundraising.
So is there any hope? Enter the third branch of government: The judicial branch. This was always going to end up in court.
Read related: Miami’s redrawn maps could save Joe Carollo’s house from lawsuit grasp
Attorney David Winker, who represents the Grove One residents, said there would “absolutely, 100%” be legal action to try to void the decision. He says Carollo’s vote was invalid because of his conflict — you know, basically drawing his Morris Lane mansion that he hasn’t been able to legally live in for about five years into his district. The debate would have ended in a 2-2 vote and no official map. It would have to be reconsidered.
That’s better than a veto, which can be overridden with four of five commission votes.
Winker also wants to file a complaint with the Commission on Ethics and Public Trust against Carollo, who voted on the redistricting map even though he will personally and directly benefit by getting his house into his District 3. Not only does he get a break on his property taxes when he moves in and claims the homestead exemption, but he can also protect the $2.2 million house from any potential legal judgements, like the $20 million federal lawsuit filed by the owners of Ball & Chain, an iconic bar and nightclub in Little Havana that Carollo has tried for years to shut down.
They tried to stop Carollo from voting on the redistricting, based on the conflict, but a judge said it was too soon to bring a case. The commissioner hadn’t voted on anything yet. They should try again now.
Even Carollo knows he should have abstained because of the conflict. That’s why he abstained from the first vote on March 11. We still don’t know who it was that “informed” the commissioner that he was “obligated” to vote because there was no direct conflict. But whoever it is was wrong.
Ladra suspects it was the voice inside his head telling him he wouldn’t get to keep his house if he didn’t vote.
Read related: Joe Carollo votes to keep his house — and other Miami redistricting madness
The NAACP has also threatened legal action based on the gerrymandering of West Grove, where 114 voters were moved into the Hispanic-majority District 4, where Commissioner Manolo Reyes has already said he doesn’t want them. But they are quietly trying the back door first — lobbying Commission Chairwoman Christine King, the sole black commissioner, to amend the map by putting the West Grove back in District 2.
Don’t know how far they are going to get. When The Miami Times asked King in an interview why she seconded the motion only to ultimately vote against it, she said “I supported the plan that was the best for District 5.
“When asked if she was concerned about Black residents of the Grove being split up, she provided the exact same response,” reads the Miami Times story.
They don’t care about Carollo’s house and the Natoma residents who just learned their absentee neighbor — because he’s been living in Little Havana while his mansion was in D2 — put them in his district.
Maybe Miami’s absentee Mayor Postalita will remember that those people voted for him, too.
Pressure is on for Miami mayor to veto redistricting — or challenges coming added by Ladra on
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