Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez is all about the optics. Under fire on an election year for letting the police department get dangerously understaffed, Gimenez will attend a ceremony Thursday for the “largest graduating class” of police officers. But like a lot of other things the mayor does, it’s not entirely true and mostly for show. […]
If you take away the employees who had to be there — the deputy mayors, the directors and assistant directors, the police command staff — and the mayor’s family, the press and the family members of the three employees he decided to highlight in his State of the County address, the lobbyists and the students […]
Wednesday morning, some of us heard another State of the County address that sounded a lot like the last State of the County address a year ago. Maybe that’s why there were almost more people outside protesting the mayor (more on that later) than inside listening to him talk and talk and talk. It’s almost […]
Hey, President Obama: We don’t want your stinkin’ Cuban consulate here. Okay? Let the spies go to Tampa or Key West. That’s what Miami-Dade Commissioners told the leader of the free world last week when they voted to approve a resolution that urges the federal government to seek another location for a consular office to […]
As part of the effort to right the ship with the special taxing districts that were getting charged too much or too little, county commissioners will consider on Wednesday a move to put the control of those neighborhoods — and their special taxing monies — in the hands of municipalities. Not only will cities and […]
Two competing ordinances to finally regulate “ride sharing” services or “TNEs” like Uber and Lyft will likely dominate the already full-agenda Miami-Dade County commission meeting Wednesday. We know taxi cab drivers are already a staple in commission chambers whenever this comes up (and sometimes when it doesn’t). And now, Uber has rallied riders to flood […]
For about two years, Uber has been operating its alleged “ride sharing” service illegally throughout Miami-Dade, picking passengers up and taking business from taxis and causing a ruckus at County Hall. And now that there is going to be a serious consideration of rules they might have to adhere to, the company has launched a […]
This week’s speaker at Miami Beach’s first Tuesday Morning Breakfast Club of the new year is Miami-Dade County Commissioner Bruno Barreiro, whose district includes the seaside city. Barreiro has been the commissioner for District 5 since 1998, when he won a special election after then Miami-Dade Commissioner Bruce Kaplan was arrested for mortgage fraud and […]
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez will give us a sneak preview of his State of the County address Monday when he speaks at the Kendall Federation of Homeowner Associations meeting. The rare face-to-face also comes on the heels of his administration’s controversial announcement that the county is considering a terminal for a ferry to Cuba on […]
There has been a changing of the guard at the congressional office for U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Miami) as her longtime friend and most trusted adviser becomes a federal lobbyist. Longtime Chief of Staff Arthur “Art” Estopiñan — who has been with her for 26 years, or almost the beginning — is leaving for the […]