Last year, it was libraries and police officers. The year before that, the pets’ trust and firefighters. This year, we’ll likely still see the pet people trying to get the mandate from the people respected by our elected commission, but the new rallying call against the Miami-Dade County budget is climate change. Or rather the […]
As we get closer to the September budget hearings on Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez‘s annual budget, several commissioners are getting ready to make some suggested changes. And the most drastic of these is a call for a tax cut from Commissioner Juan Zapata. Zapata met with Gimenez Wednesday morning to ask for a lower tax […]
Animal advocates who passed the Pets’ Trust Initiative referendum nearly three years ago and have been met with resistance from the county to execute what is basically the people’s will finally see a light at the end of the tunnel. And that light’s name is Commissioner Xavier Suarez. Suarez will present the Metropolitan Services Committee […]
You know how they say good news travels fast. Well, it also travels more. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez announced a series of budget town hall meetings, starting next week, where residents will have the opportunity to ask questions and provide input on his proposed 2015-16 county budget. And there are a whole 10 of them […]
Miami-Dade County, accused of wrongly allocating $13 million in federal grants that must be repaid to the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department, is about to dole out another $12.5 million of the very same Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), Home Investment Partnerships (HOME) and State Housing Initiatives Partnership (SHIP) monies. How do we know we won’t […]
Tucked into what is going to be a mammoth Miami-Dade County commission meeting Tuesday are two items that seem like they come out of some spy novel: Commissioners will be asked to close their eyes and give a little more than $3 million to “confidential projects” with the code names “Zorin” and “Novel.” Both are […]
It’s very nice that Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez is putting $5 million more into our public parks and $2 million more into animal services and $1 million aside for a summer jobs program for needy youth. What Gimenez didn’t say at his big reveal of the 2015-16 budget Tuesday is that he also wants to […]
Everyone in Miami-Dade County can sigh a breath of relief! Mayor Carlos “Cry Wolf” Gimenez has saved the day! There will be no further cuts to services and personnel, no more “sacrifices” asked of our loyal county employees, no more library closings. In fact, 10 of the 20-some libraries closed two days a week will […]
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos “Mr. Giveaway” Gimenez apologized profusely for the “past miscalculations” that caused sudden, big increases in taxes for property owners in 234 special taxing districts that pay for extra street lights, security and other neighborhood amenities. And then he admitted that some of the special taxing district property owners have been paying for […]
More than 116,000 Miami-Dade property owners got notices recently that show increases in their special taxing district assessments for the first time in at least four years — some as much as 22 percent. These hikes come because, in part, they’ve not been paying their fair share since at least 2011. But somebody has. Because […]