Bicycle lanes, a conflict of interest complaint and intimidation in Coral Gables

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• Who would guess that proposed bike lanes would cause so much trouble?

A plan to connect the University of Miami with downtown and North Coral Gables via 4.6 miles of bicycle lanes — some of it with accompanying sidewalks — has met resistance from some of the residents on the chosen streets who say they’ve been left out of a railroaded process.

It has also raised questions about a board member’s possible conflict of interest and caused a city commissioner to intimidate another board member.

That the bike lanes and sidewalks are unpopular is a given. Residents along Riviera Drive complained so heatedly at a commission meeting last year that Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli moved on the spot to exclude them from the planned path (after more than $300,000 reportedly spent on its design). On Tuesday, a resident of Alhambra Circle is on the commission meeting agenda to speak against bike lanes on her street — but Ladra expects a bunch of her neighbors to be there, too. Whether or not the mayor allows the others to speak is another matter.

One of their main gripes: That there was no outreach. The city’s bicycle pedestrian master plan, approved in 2014, lists the stakeholders as Bike Walk Coral Gables, UM, Mack Cycle (a popular cycling store) and The Dutch Consulate, for whatever reason. The Dutch Consulate but no residents.

“Only people that have something to gain from using a bicycle. That’s it,” says longtime activist Maria Cruz, although Ladra cannot imagine what in the world the Dutch Consulate would have to gain.

Cruz said that city staffers are pushing this on residents without sufficient study or input from the community. “If the community says they don’t want something, they do not have to have it,”said Cruz at the single resident meeting the city has had about this, where she got a lot of applause.

“I’m not really against bike lanes in Coral Gables. I am against a process that systematically ignores the residents in any project that will affect them,” said Silvia B. Piñera-Vazquez, a 50-year resident who is on Tuesday’s agenda to address the commission on this topic.

“There has been no conversation. The first time I heard about it was two months ago,” the attorney and former federal prosecutor told Ladra last week.

The first notice about it was for the townhall-like “community engagement meeting” at the Coral Gables Youth Center in late September. There was also a “walk-through” of the project in October. Both were video taped and are available on the city’s website as well as on the Gables’ YouTube channel.

At the town hall like meeting, Piñera-Vazquez brought up the safety issue on such a narrow, high-traffic and winding path. “It’s a huge hazzard,” she told Ladra Friday, repeating how there have already been several accidents and one death on the street in front of her home. She and other residents also point out that there is an existing bike lane along 57th Avenue to connect North Gables to UM and the Underline project.

The two biggest public proponents of the bike lanes, described as “Jessica’s baby,” have been Coral Gables Assistant Public Works Director Jessica Keller — who is also pushing sidewalks on residents who aren’t entirely sure (more on that later) — and Robert Ruano, founder of the non-profit Bike Walk Coral Gables, one of the stakeholders in the establishment of the bicycle pedestrian master plan and a member (until last week) of the city’s transportation advisory board who has heatedly defended the bike lane plan at public meetings.

Keller — who was recently ordered to unblock some critics from her twitter account — may feel pressured to spend the $597,670 in grant monies that were awarded for the bike lanes in 2015, which supports a common complaint about Coral Gables staff: that they get an idea, go for the grant, implement it and then ask the residents for input.

But Ruano — who abruptly resigned last week — also owns a for-profit company that is a subcontractor for H.W. Lochner, Inc., one of the companies that won the bid in 2017 for “transportation planning and engineering services” related to the bike lanes. Ruano, owner and president of Ecostrata, is listed as a subcontractor of H.W. Lochner, Inc., for grant writing services.

Local dentist Gordon Sokoloff, chairman of the transportation advisory board, became concerned when that was brought to his attention. And he sent City Attorney Miriam Ramos an email raising those concerns on Oct. 31.

“It appears that Mr. Ruano through his for-profit company, Ecostrata, may have a financial interest in the development of bike lanes in the City,” Sokoloff wrote. “I have sat on our Board for many years. I have never seen such an aggressive ‘promoter’ of bike-lane development other than Mr. Ruano and I am concerned that his motives are not without personal financial interest.”

When Ramos did not respond in nearly two weeks, Sokoloff filed an inquiry with the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust.

“I’m not saying there’s something there. I’m just saying there is enough to look into. See something, say something,” Sokoloff told Ladra on Sunday.

But for some reason, that complaint made Commissioner Pat Keon angry. And she fired off an email to Solokoff, chastising him and telling him, in other words, to stay in his lane.

“I was told you reported a fellow board member to the ethics commission because you believed they had a conflict of interest.  That is not your determination to make and an accusation of an ethics violation is not taken lightly,” Keon wrote to Sokoloff, who is, actually, her own appointment to the board. “Each of you is appointed by an elected official and it is up to whoever appointed that member to make that decision.  I also understand this person resigned as a result of this.

“I understand that you give your time to the city as an advisory board member and we are grateful for that, but you also need to be collegial.

Need to be collegial? Ain’t that familiar? But, no, Pat. He needs to report any potential conflict of interest he may see. And he needs to report it to the right entity, which is the ethics commission. They told him as much after he sought a second opinion from Executive Director Jose Arrojo.

“He said it was not just within my right, but it was my obligation to do it,” said Sokoloff, who forwarded Keon’s email to Arrojo, who sent a letter slapping her on the wrist for trying to intimidate the board member. 

“It appears that when you learned of this, you upbraided Dr. Sokoloff for referring the matter to the Ethics Commission. You additionally suggested that conflict of interest matters impacting TAB members are within the province of the City Commissioner that appointed the particular Board member, not the Ethics Commission,” Arrojo wrote Wednesday.

“I spoke to Dr. Sokoloff and advised him that he was well within his rights to refer a possible violation of the conflict of interest prohibitions by a board member. I also explained that pursuant to Section 2–1072, of the Code of Miami–Dade County, the Ethics Commission, not a municipal elected official, is empowered to interpret and enforce the County Ethics Code.”

Take that, Pat!

“After considering the matter, consulting with the Ethics Commission Advocate and speaking to Miriam Ramos, the Coral Gables City Attorney, it is suggested that the email that you forwarded to Dr. Solokoff may have simply been unartfully drafted and not meant as an attempt to chill the rights of a board member in his interaction with the Ethics Commission,” wrote Arrojo in a very obvious wink, wink, nod nod, ten cuidado way.

Unartfully drafted, indeed.

Keon actually responded to them in a classic Keon way, by dismissing the merits of their concern and their jurisdiction (more on that later).

“While I respect your office’s standing and authority on ethics complaints I also recognize our City Attorney, Miriam Ramos, is the chief ethics officer in the City of Coral Gables,” Keon wrote back to Arrojo, asking for a copy of the Ruano complaint and findings. “I do believe it is prudent to discuss concerns with her prior to filing a formal ethics complaint because despite the findings the complain itself does tarnish one’s reputation.”

True dat. Ladra hopes she hasn’t and/or doesn’t file any frivolous campaign cycle complaint.

The complaint Sokoloff made is not frivolous and was, as Arrojo said, made in good faith. It is well grounded. There is enough documentation that points to a potential conflict of interest. It may be nothing at all, but it still needs to be looked into. It is exactly the kind of thing that must be reported.

Ruano told Ladra late Sunday that there was no conflict. “Lochner put me on a team and sent me a contract, but I never signed it. I never did anything with them. I never even talked to them after 2017.”

He says he resigned from the board because “it was the right time” and has a friend that got appointed to the board that he would not be able to talk to outside public meetings because of the Sunshine Law.

But it’s still something that the ethics board should investigate.

And you can bet Ruano will still be at Tuesday’s meeting, as Bike Walk Coral Gables, to defend the bike lanes, which he says offer a safer route through the city.

“It’s about moving people from one place to another safely,” he said. “Some people don’t like it because it affects their front yard.

“But eventually, it is good for everybody.”

Even the people who live along Alhambra and Biltmore Way (which is next)?

  Bicycle lanes, Coral Gables, Pat Keon, transportation