Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos “Cry Wolf” Gimenez was all smiles as he doled out the good news and budget increases last week: Higher property values give the county $120 million more to play with and the mayor recommends millions in additional funds to libraries, parks and programs — including an additional $2 million to the county’s Animal Services department.
But that’s not what voters asked for in 2012 when they overwhelmingly approved a measure to increase taxes for the sole purpose of funding a Pets’ Trust that would make Miami-Dade a no-kill county. And Gimenez continues to deny the voters the right to establish an independent budget and dedicated funding mechanism for the Pet’s Trust Initiative that passed in 2012 with a mandate of 65% of the vote.
That translates to 483,491 people who voted for the Pet’s Trust Initiative. And that’s more than twice as many as the people who voted for Gimenez — in both 2012 and 2011 combined.
Expect a lot of red t-shirts at today’s commission meeting, at which commissioners will discuss the tax rate and budget publicly for the first time. The Pets’ Trust people will be speaking again about the lack of follow through with promises.
“People voted for it and we are fighting to honor that vote,” said Pets’ Trust founder and president Michael Rosenberg, who mapped out the plan based on what animal services experts — including our own county department head Alex Muñoz — told him would be needed. The main ingredient is massive spay and neutering, not just these hit and miss days that the county has created with puppy photo opps for politicians.
The mayor and some commissioners keep saying that voters didn’t know they were voting for a tax increase, even though it said so in the tenth word on the ballot question. The ballot language was certainly clearer than the FIU expansion question that the mayor and everybody else is trying to take out of context.
Were voters unclear what they were voting for when they passed the school board referendum? The Jackson Hospital referendum? The Children’s Trust? The Homeless Trust?
Did voters know and understand that the 2004 bond referendum for county improvements would include $9 million to a private developer for SkyRise Miami. Gimenez spokesman Mike Hernández said in October of last year that the project is exactly the type that voters envisioned when they backed the bond.
“Miami-Dade voters knew what they voted for in 2004,” Hernández was quoted as saying.
They knew what they were voting for more than they did in 2012?
For some reason, the mayor and some commissioners want us to believe that there was some kind of lapse in the voters’ judgement or that the question was not clear.
Read related story: Politicos pose with pets, insult our intelligence with photo ops
“It was so clear we thought it would lose. The county attorney wrote it. We hated it. We actually had people on our board who quit because of it,” Rosenberg said.
This is the language on that 2012 ballot:
“Would you be in favor of the County Commission increasing the countywide general fund millage by 0.1079 mills and applying the additional ad 
valorem tax revenues generated thereby to fund improved animal services, including: Decreasing the killing of adoptable dogs and cats (historically approximately 20,000 annually); Reducing stray cat populations (currently approximately 400,000 cats); and funding free and low-cost spay/neuter programs, low-cost veterinary care programs, and responsible pet ownership educational programs?”
And 483,491 people voted yes. Another 266,475 people voted no. Doesn’t seem like a close contest.
It was the fourth biggest vote-getter on the extraordinarily fat and distracting ballot, after president, senate and one of the hotly contested congressional races — even though it was almost the last question on a ballot with 12 amendments and 8 other county questions.
“That means people looked for it,” Rosenberg said. “People went into the voting booth to vote for this.”
The mayor and some commissioners also like to say it was a non-binding question. Well, it has to be. By law, citizens cannot increase taxes through a vote. The vote sends a message to those who were elected to represent us.
“We wouldn’t have done all this work if we didn’t think it would count. They sat there and told us to get the votes and they would do it,” Rosenberg said. “We knew we had to win by more than one vote.”
Instead of acting on the voters’ will, the mayor in 2013 increased the animal services’ $10 million budget to $14 million — a pacifier for the pets people, most of which was spent on staff salaries and benefits.
How much of the $2 million more put in this year will go to additional staff and their health insurance?
One thing is for sure: Voters did not have that in mind when they passed the Pets’ Trust.
A lot of people think it was done. They don’t pay close attention to county politics and are under the impression that the Pets’ Trust was created by the commission and taken care of. In February, the board of the PTA/PTSA voted unanimously to support the enacting of the Pets’ Trust Initiative after they learned the vote, the people’s will, had been cast aside.
“As an advocacy association, one of the key points stressed to our over 50,000 members in Miami-Dade is that if you exercise your vote your demands will be heard by those elected to represent you. In the case of The Pets’ Trust, the will of the people has been absolutely ignored and serves as the greatest reason why we lend our support to this organization,” wrote PTA President Joseph Gebara.
Now that the county is flush with cash from the higher property rates — and before anybody suggests anything stupid like a tax cut or more corporate incentives or anything like that — here’s a golden opportunity to have our vote count: Apply the 0.1079 millage — that amounts to about $15 per average homeowner — to the Pets’ Trust. According to the mayor, we can afford it now.
“We can actually solve the problem, not just put bandaids on it,” Rosenberg said.
Gimenez has apparently refused to meet with Rosenberg or the Pets’ Trust folks. But he has met with Commissioner Bruno Barreiro and the staff of commissioners Sally Heyman, Barbara Jordan, Audrey Edmonson and Daniel Levine-Cava, who was endorsed by them and ran partly on the platform that the people’s vote should be respected.
It will be interesting to see how many of those electeds defend our vote Tuesday.
Carlos Gimenez keeps rejecting voter-approved Pets’ Trust added by Ladra on
View all posts by Ladra →
I think this video on YouTube says it all when it comes to animal services and Gimenez. What a shame the recall organizer sold out.
http://youtu.be/umVzF94FayI
It has become all too woefully and frequently evident that this pathetic mayor finds it inordinately difficult to manage budgets and — as we realize now to our immense dismay — preserve government promises to the governed (Pets’ Trust Initiative).
Why ever would he then want to undertake all this difficulty for another four years? Why, indeed? Let us help relinquish him of this “burden” at the polls next year. Raquel Regalado seems more than up to the task.
The Pets’ Trust plan approved by the Mayor and all 13 commissioners in 2013 had a budget of 20 million dollars. Twelve million dollars was to be set aside for spay/neuter surgeries.
Working with Director Munoz we came up with a plan to accomplish 100,000 surgeries a year. That would be almost 2,000 surgeries a week.
The veterinarians have agreed to do 2,000 surgeries a year. I REPEAT WE NEED TO DO 2,000 SURGERIES A WEEK TO SOLVE OUR PROBLEM.
We appreciate the veterinarians are helping but the Pets’ Trust is leading this initiative. If the veterinarians would like to expand their program please call me at 305 491 5651 and lets work together to get the full funding that we voted for.
Thank you, Rita Schwartz
I read the entire proposal prior to voting for The Pet Trust Plan. I also spoke to Alex Munoz about the plan when I attended one of the Miami-Dade Commission meetings in which I was there advocating that they pass the legislation creating the millage item that would fund The Pet Trust plan.
The South Florida Veterinary Medical Association opposed funding the Pet Trust plan because in the words from their Facebook post on May 25, 2013, “this legislation, if adopted, will affect the livelihood of all veterinarians in South Florida.” The Facebook post was an announcement of an urgent meeting of all members at the Bank Atlantic Center on May 29, 2013. The last line of the Facebook post stated, “Our livelihood will be impacted if we do not act fast!”
They deleted that Facebook post, but I took a screen capture of it because it plainly stated the reason behind their opposition. It is not about the animals, it is about their livelihood. They should be ashamed of themselves.
THe SVFMA will spin their opposition in many ways, but it is about their livelihood and not about the greater good of animals and the community.
The methodology behind The Pet Trust from what I remember having read two years and half years ago is having high volume spay/neuter centers. This is based on a plan implemented in Jacksonville which is very effective.
Mayor Lerner refers to “infrastructure in place” which is another name for a voucher program so that animals could be spayed or neutered at veterinary clinics of SFVMA members instead of a high volume spay and neuter center.
While vouchers can complement a high volume spay neuter clinic, it, in my estimation, cannot effectively tackle the problem in Miami-Dade County of unsterilized dogs and cats like a high volume spay and neuter center.
Ladra should note that Mayor Cindy Lerner is married to Dr. Ira Lerner, DVM, a board member of The South Florida Veterinary Medical Association.
I agree Mayor Gimenez does not care much for pets. Judging by the way he has kicked county employees around since he took over in 2011, dogs are not one of his priorities.
P.S. to previous
The Mayor actually has some respect for me because I have been an industry leader helping to end monopoly excesses, and deplorable service, by the taxi industry, and helping to win approval of Uber and Lyft.
I just emailed him and his team in support of the Pet’s Trust, because this is a matter of conscience for me with defenseless animals.
However, please forgive me, but Publisher DeValle, I believe you do our community a terrible disservice with your total failure to connect with Mayor Gimenez’s “walking the plank”, year after year after year, for clean government.
He was for so many years the Miami Herald’s only vote, a 1 Commissioner dissent, trying to stop corrupt spending by the Miami-Dade County Commission. He has been the only Mayor I’ve seen since my return in 1998, who actually demands and implements a Government which does not waste the taxpayers hard-earned dollars, especially during THE GREAT RECESSION.
Publisher, and otherwise courageous and accomplished journalist DeValle, Why don’t YOU care that we finally have a Mayor who has tried to end the corrupt waste of taxpayer dollars ???
Whatever kind of commissioner you think he was THEN doesn’t vindicate what kind of mayor he is NOW. People — and politicians — change. And he has changed for the worse.
My dearest Rip, I was one of Carlos Gimenez’s biggest fans. Some people blame me for helping him gain the edge he needed to win in 2011. He was my commissioner for years and I had a great deal of respect for him.
I even called him “Golden Boy”.
But things have changed and Gimenez is tainted now. Tainted by the greed of lobbyist buddies, his friends and family plan and other insiders who get backroom deals. He was tainted by absentee ballot fraud in 2012. He is tainted by his lack of vision and failure to prioritize the things that this community holds near and dear — parks, libraries, police and fire services, not megamalls and stadiums and trips to Paris and coporate “incentives” in the millions. He is tainted by broken promises and a disregard for democracy.
It breaks my heart, but he is not the same man I voted for in 2011.
Love, Ladra
Dear Publisher DeValle and Political Cortadito Readers:
I find it most disheartening that our, to me, otherwise excellent Mayor, Mr. Gimenez, does not appear to love dogs sufficiently to include them in the Budget, despite our voters showing they want this done.
This weighs on my conscience.
Sincerely,
Jackson Rip Holmes
Respectfully, Mayor Lerner, you can read the ballot language. The voters were not telling the county to fund more animal services, they were telling the county to increase the millage by 0.1079 and apply or dedicate those funds to a program. That has not happened.
What you say are increased spay and neuter programs are bandaids where the veterinarians you are defending get paid a higher amount than the organization would have under the Pets’ Trust initiative. That is why the Vets hired lobbyists to work against this. Their task force and infrastructure is working against low-cost clinics because they fear they will lose high-paying customers. The same funds could accomplish far more surgeries under the Pets’ Trust plan, which was developed with animal experts, including the county department director. The current system is a waste of funds.
I am surprised that you are not one of those in the community that is standing up for democracy and for our vote — we knew exactly what we were voting for — to be respected. I won’t be surprised if it comes back to bite you in the, er, pants when and if you run for county commission.
Love, Ladra
Surely you know what a straw ballot is and so did the voters. They were telling the county to fund more animal services and the county has significantly increased it’s funding for spay neuter services and is building a new shelter. The fact is that the county has greatly expanded their spay neuter capacity working with the local veterinary association and Veterinary Foundation. They are committed to helping conduct the outreach throughout the county, focusing on under served communities. You should get all the facts by speaking to the Veterinarians who are leading this effort. They have a task force and have the infrastructure in place and certainly the medical knowledge and skills to create a much more cost effective solution than any other proposal.