At new South Miami mayor's first meeting, CRA and county money ends

Newly-elected South Miami Mayor Sally Philips held court in her first meeting Tuesday — albeit with a lot of help from City Manager Stephen Alexander and the city clerk — and proceeded to nail the coffin in the city’s CRA, which gets more than half its $3.5 annual budget from Miami-Dade County to provide programs and projects in the predominantly black part of the city.

Allowing the South Miami Community Redevelopment Agency to “sunset” means the city loses at least $1.7 million a year from the county for one its most diverse and needy neighborhood. Extending another 10 years would have meant an extra $17 million or more, as property values increase, from county tax dollars into the CRA for capital improvement projects. And the county has already earmarked $4 million this year that the city would have to share with the CRA — but not any more.

This could be the first CRA in county history to actually sunset when it is supposed to. Lots of CRAs are slush funds for pet projects and should end when their time comes. But the quickness with which they closed this CRA, in a community that really needs it and before they could present a proposal to show what they could do in another 10 years — just raises eyebrows. Because they never had a chance.

The vote Tuesday was 4-1, with only Commissioner Walter Harris dissenting. But Philips voted with the majority because she had seen what happened at the Feb. 4 meeting, right before the election, when Mayor Phillip Stoddard tried to save the CRA because an extended interlocal agreement would bring the city more than $12 million over the next 10 years.

“I hate to give away free money. Its kind of against my religion,” Stoddard said, adding that the CRA had turned around in recent years and could do a lot more now with thatmone.. “This is actually free county money… there is a reduction in the amount of money the city would have.”

The council voted 4-1 to defer the item until a meeting in March. But after a 5 minute break — during which Ladra suspects some Sunshine Law violations occurred — Commissioner Bob Welsch brought the item back. Stoddard kept practically begging to keep the CRA so that the city didn’t lose the money that the county would bring into it.

“We’re still waiting to hear from the county on the final request,” Stoddard said, adding that the city has the authority to dissolve the CRA later, at any time, “if we wind up in a budget crunch. We could pull the plug on it.”

But it seemed that Welsch, commissioners Josh Liebman and Jorge Gil and City Manager Steven Alexander — who is leaving anyway in May — were determined on pulling the plug right now. Liebman called the CRA a “political entity whose goals may be different from the city’s” and Ladra can’t help but wonder if this is retaliatory because CRA Board Member Levy Kelly had the nerve to run against him?

Philips could have tried last week to reverse what happened, which doesn’t pass the smell test. Instead, the resolution passed Tuesday allows the city to transfer whatever is left of the monies collected by the CRA — property tax funds earmarked for their use to battle blight and encourage economic development — to the general fund for the city and to Miami-Dade County.

While some residents have told Ladra that the CRA account was used as a slush fund for city officials, Dick Ward, an active resident and former vice principal at South Miami Middle School said he was “shocked” it would not be extended.

“If you represent all the city, how can you say that when the other side of the highway belongs to a program that was important to that community,” Ward said, adding that there had been abuse that should have been curtailed. “I’m talking about projects like the city parking garage. I didn’t know that CRA paid for a good part of all of that parking garage.”

He asked the commission to defer the item and reconsider the Feb. 4 vote. “Mayor you didn’t have anything to do with that,” Ward said. “I wish you would defer tonight’s resolution for at least one more meeting. The community should have an opportunity to respond to it. And I was told today that the community would like to speak about it at the next commission meeting.”

Ward said he had been in the CRA office many times “and I saw them helping parents with needs for their children, for school, helping them with needs for their homes. And I would hate for the citizens on that side of the highway to lose that service.”

Harris also tried to get some more time to see if the county would allow it to continue.

Alexander told him that the city had talked to county officials and “county staff was very supportive of the action that the city commission took. The city commission took a decisive action.” He said a lot of people from the entire city had come to the first reading to “make their voices heard” and that all of that was taken into consideration.

“We, the staff, have already begun to make this happen. It is something the city has already approved. We have talked to county staff and asked county staff how to proceed. We are waiting to hear back because they have to talk to county attorneys.”

But that is not what CRA Executive Director Evan Fancher — who came from Miami-Dade Commissioner Xavier Suarez‘s office two years ago to reorganize — said at the Feb. 4 meeting. He said the county was waiting to see what the city wanted to do.

Alexander said on Tuesday that the county recommends that the resolution passed Tuesday night “as written. The county will then cease an interlocal agreement and then the county will sign a resolution accepting the results. Ladra has asked for confirmation of that recommendation.

“We will continue to pay the CRA employees, salaries and benefits until the end of May or until they resign,” Alexander said. Whatever is remaining in the account in May will be split on the ratio of who put the money in, he explained, adding that it was 48% for the city and 52% for the county.

The CRA had previously taken action to allocate about $1.3 million to city projects, including an overpass over U.S. 1.

“The city will have those revenues available to it,” Alexander said.

Well, not really. Remember, the county takes back 52%.

“Our estimate now is $400,000. We will put that money directly back into the city. The commission can spend it any way it decides,” Alexander said, basically admitting that the money does not have to go back into the black neighborhood’s needs.

So they sold the city’s black neighborhood out for $400,000 that they obviously want to spend elsewhere in the city?

Alexander said the city will evaluate the CRA programs — which include home rehab programs to maintain the stock of affordable housing that is dwindling in South Miami — to “see which ones we want to continue and which ones we want to not look at. The properties the CRA has will become city properties and we can decide what is the best disposition for those properties.”

He and the city commission just can’t wait to get their hands on those properties, too. Is that what this is about? Ladra has asked for a list of said properties to see what they want to build there.

“We have talked to the county and the county was supportive, county staff was very supportive of the action that the city commission took,” when they voted not to extend the CRA, Alexander said.

“Not quite,” said Commissioner Suarez, who had already convinced another county commissioner at the committee level to extend the CRA. He said he wanted to keep the CRA, but after taking to Liebman and taking a tour of the neighborhood with the assistant city manager, he said he saw there was very little left to be done.

“There’s really no slum and blight left. That’s really good news,” Suarez said, adding that the Madison Square public housing project — which has been delayed — is fully funded and would replace the blight that was left. “I told Josh, ‘I’m not going to try to overturn whatever you guys decide.'”

But it seems slightly ridiculous that the Miami Beach CRA was extended so they could build a performing arts center when there is certainly less slum and blight in Miami Beach than in South Miami.

On Tuesday, Alexander said the Feb. 4 decision was the right one to make: “The city commission took a decisive action. Lots of people from the entire city had the opportunity to come and make their voices heard. The commission heard all that, took all that into consideration and made a decision.

“To prolong and take another bite of the apple… it takes two months to put an item back on the agenda. County staff has work they have to do to get that item ready for their board and that all needs to happen by the end of May,” Alexander said.

So they’re in a hurry to get those $400,000. But not to invest it back into the community. They can spend it anywhere.

The commission also authorized the manager to increase the operating expenditures to “establish scholarships for social and recreational program registration on behalf of youth whose family income is less than 80%” of the median income in the county. The measure, sponsored by Welsch, now the vice mayor, wants to fill the hole the CRA will leave in the community when it ceases to operate. But, apparently, only by $50,000, not $400,000.

And Liebman didn’t even want to give up those $50K so easily and wanted to defer that part.

“It’s our $50,000 so I would just like time to review this with staff,” Liebman said. “And we’re still continuing the PAL program which is over $100,000 a year.”

Alexander said it was the vice mayor’s intention to keep funding programs, like after school care and swimming lessons — “as much as we can” through the end of the year.

Commissioner Jorge Gil said he did not want to defer and “see any of these programs interrupted because we’re holding off.”

Said Alexander: “There is a lot of programatic stuff here that needs to be worked out.”

In other action Tuesday, Liebman appointed defeated mayoral candidate Bruce Baldwin to the planning and zoning board, fueling speculation that Baldwin was a plantidate to get as many Anybody But Sally votes as possible away from the other, more viable candidates. Stoddard, who convinced Philips to run to continue his agenda and was in the audience Tuesday, also supported Liebman in the election.

“My unsuccessful run for mayor was born upon my concern for the city and rather than brood away in defeat, which I lost badly,” said Baldwin, who didn’t even really campaign and got 4%. But, he said, he could address those concerns in another arena.

Another defeated mayoral candidate, Lina Sierra, sat in he audience but did not get offered an appointment.

And Antoinette Fisher, an active resident for years, said the planning and zoning board was already “stacked with people who are positioned on that board with the express purpose of basically approving every single project that comes before that board, especially high-rise projects.”

She also used the public comments period of the meeting to tell the commissioners that there need to be more adherence to the city’s guidelines in the codes or “the city will become a hodgepodge of ugly architecture.”

At the end, she pointed out that the city manager had been giggling throughout her remarks. Before the next speaker, Alexander wanted to clarify for the record: “I was not laughing at Ms. Fisher or her remarks,” he told them.

Ladra asked him afterwards if he was watching a funny video on YouTube or something. “I don’t watch YouTube,” he said.

So what made him laugh so much?

“I just had a funny thought,” Alexander said.

Wonder if it was about those properties and that $400,000 the city is about to get its hands on.

Sally Philips, South Miami politics, Steven Alexander

At new South Miami mayor’s first meeting, CRA and county money ends added by Ladra on February 22, 2020
View all posts by Ladra →