Riptide is encouraged to note schools superintendent Roger Cuevas, who is paid $233,000 per year, was his usual eloquent self last Wednesday. Board member Marta Perez asked Cuevas to justify the transfer of former school police chief Vivian Monroe, who has long supervised 180 employees at a salary of $89,000 per year. Now, as commander of the investigative unit, she will oversee a whopping total of six -- at the same pay. Said the super: "Um, the uh police department is a thoroughly new entity to the school district. The special investigative unit has been around for many years, and the primary function was to do, uh, personnel investigation, uh, robbery investigations at school sites. Because of the complexity of our community diversity, uh, the board, uh under the direction of the former superintendent, decided that we needed uniformed officers at each of our secondary schools. That changed the scope and the spectrum of the entire uh, [pause] uh, police, policing of our schools. Uh, it took away from our investigative units. We have a dual function.... Uh, it requires an additional person to oversee... And that's the reason we are doing what we are doing."
Remember Eastward Ho!, the effort to attract developers back from the 'burbs? Well fuhgeddaboutit. Miami-Dade County is quietly considering moving almost 500 employees, virtually the entire building department and many others, to a location just west of Florida's Turnpike on Coral Way. Within a month County Manager Merrett Stierheim will recommend the plan, which is designed to bring permitting services closer to the subdivisions on the Everglades' edge, says Pete Hernandez, a senior Stierheim assistant. "This is the center of all the [building] activity," he notes. "We are trying to get the services closer to the people."
Report from Florida International University. After a New Times cover story (see "A Shakey Machine") described sleaze on the school's basketball team, hundreds of papers disappeared from distribution points, including one in the Graham Center. Our on-campus moles blame faculty and at least one team member. Nothin' like a free exchange of ideas, huh?
New Times has some national awards to call its own this week. Jacob Bernstein and Steve Satterwhite took first place in Lincoln University's (Missouri) Unity Awards for their story "The Bitterness of Sugar Hill" (July 22, 1999), about a public-housing boondoggle. And editor Jim Mullin placed first for a column, "Saviors of Virginia Key," (April 1, 1999).
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