The sun still shines. The beaches are still some of the best in the world. The weather, unfortunate for this time of year, is still the same as it ever was. All of those stereotypical things that draw people to call Florida home have gone more or less unchanged, so what's to blame for the first population decrease since World War II?
Time magazine thinks it's the mismanagement of state and local elected officials that have led to unnecessary extra tax hikes. And guess who gets made an example of by the most read news weekly in the country? Mayor Alvarez and the Miami-Dade County Commission.
Granted, most local governments often have to raise taxes when they're staring at fiscal craters like the $427 million shortfall in Miami-Dade's proposed $7.83 billion budget. But the less than sunny mood in Miami-Dade is made darker by the feeling among most residents that their fiscal jam is not just a result of falling revenue, but also years of profligate mismanagement. The final determination on their property taxes will be made soon by the Miami-Dade County Commission - a feckless, corruption-tainted body, many of whose members ran up hundreds of thousands of dollars in police overtime costs recently by using cops as their personal chauffeurs. (None of the commissioners face any sanctions for it.)
Residents were further outraged last week when the Miami Herald reported that Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez, one of the few Miami politicians with a reputation for probity, had raised the salaries of his chief of staff and other top lieutenants this year as high as 15% while calling for a 5% pay cut for county workers. Alvarez spokesperson Victoria Mallette says the raises resulted from a 2007 referendum that gave Miami-Dade's mayor, until then a relatively weak post, broad new powers that in turn thrust heavier duties on his staff...The County Commission, for example, has a staff of more than 200 serving only 13 commissioners - and yet it still managed to screw up tasks like its oversight of Miami-Dade's scandal-plagued housing agency.
Feckless? Ouch. So are Natacha Seijas and the rest of the "corruption-tainted" body really to blame for the loss of a couple thousand citizen in Miami-Dade county? We're not entirely sure, but they sure aren't helping.
